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| Memmed Ansari |
Elchin Efendiyev's play My Favorite Madman, written in Azerbaijani, was staged in English at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London this month. The play, presented to the British audience from April 9 to 13 under the title My Favorite Madman, featured music composed by Memmed Ansari, a Tabriz-based artist living in London. Ansari spoke to Voice of America about the play and his other activities.
He praises the director Matthew Gould and the other collaborators of the production, describing them as talented art professionals from the UK.
Having received his higher education in music from universities in Azerbaijan and the UK, the Southern Azerbaijani musician mentions that during his years in Tabriz, he composed music for various plays and short films.
"We had prominent songwriters like Ali Salimi, who wrote the famous song 'Separation,' but we did not have composers who created musical works specifically from Southern Azerbaijan," Mr. Ansari emphasizes, pointing out the difference between songwriting and composition.
Ansari, the creator of the 21 Azər Symphonic Poem, dedicated to the Azerbaijani National Government formed under the leadership of Seyid Jafar Pishaveri in 1945-46, shares with Voice of America that his next composition will be The Tabriz Symphony.
According to the young musician, in order to compose a symphony on any topic, one must read books on the subject and thoroughly understand and feel the atmosphere: "These days, I am reading literary works that describe Tabriz, including Reza Baraheni’s Secrets of My Homeland and Azadeh Khanum's novels, as well as books by Samad Behrangi and Gholam-Hossein Sa'edi."
Link to the original interview in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
Məmməd Ənsari: Təbriz üçün simfoniya yazacağam