Galib Mammadov

Galib Mammadov (born April 19, 1946) is an Azerbaijani-Norwegian composer.

He is influenced by both Western and Eastern music traditions and composed a wide range of musical pieces for various instruments and orchestras.

Galib Mammadov was born in Ganja, Azerbaijan which, at that time, belonged to the Soviet Union.

He completed his secondary education at the music grammar school in Baku, Azerbaijan, and took at the same time lessons by the well known Azerbaijanian composer Fikret Amirov.

Mammadov then moved to Baku and went to the music college Asaf Zeynally, where he attended classes in music theory, composition and music literature, held by the composer Khayyam Mirzazade, the music historian R. Farhadova, and Z. Stelnic.

In 1969, Galib Mammadov enrolled at the Azerbaijanian Republic Music Conservatory, named Uzeir Hajibeyov after the famous Azerbaijanian musician.

There he attended the composition class of the composer Gara Garayev.

While studying at the conservatory he composed preludes, variations, and sonata for piano, Sonatina for oboe and piano, scherzo for flute and piano and a string quartet.

He graduated in 1975 with "Bayaties", a vocal cycle for soprano, bass and symphony orchestra, based on the text of the Azerbaijanian poet Vagif Bayat.

It was first played by the Azerbaijanian symphony orchestra in 1975.

During the next years, Mammadov continued to develop his musical repertoire and composed many pieces in different genres while working as a teacher at the musical college in Ganja.

In the nineties, he became acquainted with the Norwegian writer and song text writer Eivind Skeie, and participated in many Norwegian-Azerbaijanian coproductions, such as “Landet vi kommer fra” ("The Country We Come From"), “Sommerland” ("Summerland"), “Oratorium Albanum” and "Askeladden" - music for Azerbaijanian puppet theatre, as well as a cantata for children, called “Drømmenes Fjell” ("The Mountain of Dreams").

In 2002, Mammadov moved to Norway to work as an organist in various churches.

As a consequence, he has composed a number of psalms in recent years.

The most well known is "La Den Brenne" (Let It Burn) which is sung in many different languages throughout the world.

Recently, Mammadov has also written several piano pieces.

Many of these are inspired by the beauty of the Norwegian nature, such as ”Rafossen” about the waterfall Rafoss, “Våren er her” about spring in Norway, "Vals" ("Waltz") and "Høst på Frei", about autumn in Frei.

Mammadov's work is characterized by a great variety of style, genre, and musical influences.

Being able to play quite a number of instruments himself, he composes works for many different instruments, orchestras and vocal sounds.

Much of his inspiration comes from Azerbaijan, where many different music traditions meet – the classical European and Russian music traditions, as well as Azerbaijanian folk music.