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Mehti Novruzov
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Mehti Novruzov Bala oglu was born on 16 April 1925, in Baku. He studied clarinet from childhood at the Musical School. After the start of the Second World War in 1941, he volunteered to go to the front at the age of 16. Novruzov was in service in Vilnius at the end of the war; he studied at the Musical College there and then entered the Conservatoire, where he studied for two years. After returning to Baku he continued his education at the Uzeyir Hajibeyov State Conservatoire and, after graduating, he worked in the Azerbaijan State Jazz Orchestra. In the early 1950s he formed a jazz quintet in the Azerbaijan Radio Committee, where famous musicians and singers such as Mirza Babayev, Narmina Mammadova, Rashid Behbutov and Shovket Alekperova among others. In the early 1960s Maestro Niyazi invited Mehti Novruzov to join the Symphony Orchestra, where he worked until the end of the decade, but, after a serious illness, he had to give up playing, on the advice of doctors, and turned to education as a teacher. He taught at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, the Asef Zeynalli Musical College and the BulBul Musical School. Mehti Novruzov Bala oglu taught talented clarinettists and saxophonists like Tofiq Shabanov, Akif Suleyman-beyli, Aydin Manafli and many others, who work now both within Azerbaijan and abroad. At the beginning of the 1970s Novruzov wrote his “Basic Book on Playing the Clarinet”, which provided support for students at the Musical School and in Secondary Musical Education. In 1976 Mehti Novruzov passed away suddenly at the age of 50, in the blossoming of his creative work. A memorial to him remains in the ‘Golden Fund of Azerbaijan’, where you can hear his inimitable playing; playing from a soul which touched the hearts and souls of many Bakuvians.
