Since the release of my composition ‘Nasimi’, I have been heartened by the growing interest in the life and legacy of the great poet who inspired it. I feel it is the perfect moment to share more about the how and why of this work, speaking directly to those who have expressed a genuine desire to delve deeper into the origins of these verses and my decision to set them to music.

I composed ‘Nasimi’ in 2019 as one of nine works commissioned for the UNESCO World Heritage Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan. Each piece presented an essential part of Azerbaijani heritage to the international assembly. Since Imadaddin Nasimi is universally regarded as one of the greatest figures of Turkic literature, UNESCO had declared that the 600th anniversary of his birth in 1973 be celebrated worldwide, and 2019 was declared The Year of Nasimi in Azerbaijan in celebration of his 650th anniversary. I was therefore given specific lyrics from his poetry to use as part of one of my compositions.

Of the nine works I composed and performed for UNESCO, the one that became most popular was titled ‘Nasimi’.

The music for ‘Nasimi’ was written in Shur mugham, one of the seven main modes in Azerbaijani music, and one that evokes a fiercely passionate state in its listeners. With high-energy percussion and beautifully performed mugham vocalisations, I sought to create a musical narrative that expressed the fire at the heart of Azerbaijani/Turkic musical heritage. To capture the complex modal systems of this region, I scored the instrumentation to highlight the range of their traditional instruments including the tar, kamancha, oud, kanun, unique percussions, and balaban. Simply put, I intended the music of ‘Nasimi’ to celebrate the living artistic language of the Turkic world and the people who embody it today....

Read the full article in the Sami Yusuf Circle.