Mugham Festival
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The Mugham Festival or Shusha Festival is an annual musical festival that is being held in Azerbaijan. The festival is focused on traditional Azerbaijani music known as Mugham.
One of the major pioneers of this festival was Uzeyir Hajibeyov who was People's Artist of the USSR in 1938. Hajibeyov dedication his life to preserve the traditional music of Azerbaijan. Another pioneer was Rashid Behbudov also the winner of People's Artist of the USSR, who participated in every festival. The Mugam Festival was founded and traditionally celebrated in the Azerbaijani city Shusha.The last Shusha Festival, shown here, was in 1988. Because of the conflict in the Karabakh region, Shusha has been occupied by Armenian forces since 1992 and all Azeris have fled. Today the festival lives on and is being organized in Shaki since November 1994. Every year thousands of people participate in this festival. And a new festival has emerged fromout this one, the Children's Mugham Festival, which is also held in Shaki. During this festival many talanted children mainly refugees from the occupied regions of Azerbaijan get the chance to share their music and sing to a large crowd.