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Azerbaijani-American Documentary on Mugham to be shown within the Big Easy Film Festivals in the US

14 November 2009 09:33 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Isabel Levine-APA. Famous US professor of Montana University, known as political analyst on South and North Caucasus and author of numerous books Thomas Goltz is showing his â€œMugham in Montanaâ€ 15-minutes long documentary within the Big Easy Films Festivals.

Goltz told APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondent that the documentary is about the exhausting cross-cultural musical road trip of the group Qadim Sharq (â€˜Ancient Eastâ€™) across the Treasure State, with performances at Rocky Mountain College in Billings in the east, the music department of Montana State University in Bozeman in south-central Montana, the Livingston library on the Yellowstone River, and finally at the University of Montana at Missoula in the west.

Along the way, the group opened the ears of hundreds of locals to the magic of the mystical, non-rhythmic, modal music of Azerbaijan - mugham.

Thomas Goltz said he was first introduced to mugham back in 1991, when he first arrived to Azerbaijan. Analyst says since that time he has been fascinated by this music: â€œmugham is an acquired taste because it is of course very different than American music, such as Rock & Roll or country music, which most people here in Montana listen".

Goltz added that he is currently working on a longer documentary about Jeffery Werbock searching for several refugee children who sang and played mugham in their camps in 1998. The screening of that film is supported by The European Azerbaijan Society, and it should be completed by the summer of 2010.

According to Goltz, "The point of this film is for Jeffery to discover what those same children are doing ten years later. Do they still play and sing? Where are they today? This approach allows us to use mystical and beautiful music of mugham as the primary vehicle to explore the human results of the war, but in a soft way that will make the realities of Karabagh accessible to outsiders in a way that a ’war’ film filled with blood can never do."

â€œMugham in Montanaâ€ or The Mystical Music of Mugham Comes to Montana won an Award of Merit in the short film/documentary category at the La Jolla, California 2009 Accolade Film Festival Competition in August 2009.

The Mystical Music of Mugham was shot by cameraperson Randy Jacobs with extra footage shot by Ian Clark, and edited by Katy Magruder of the Montana Sprout Group. Special logistical assistance was provided by Vahid Alekbarov, a refugee from Armenian-occupied Karabakh, now resident in Billings, and Elin Suleymanov, Consul General of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Los Angeles and the thirteen western US states, including Montana. The executive producer was Tale Heydarov, Chairman of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS).