Tofig Guliyev

Tofig Guliyev was born on November 7, 1917, Bilgəh in Baku, in the family of salary worker.

He became a student of the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire when he was 12 years old due to his musical talent. But in 1934, he became a student of Baku Conservatoire, where he studied in two faculties - fortepiano (in professor I.S.Aysberg’s class) and composer (in professor S.G.Strasser’s class). In the conservatoire young Tofig Guliyev familiarized with works of great classics of the past – Bach, Beethoven, Tschaikovsky, Schubert and other composers.

The brilliant talent of Tofig Guliyev drew music communities’ attention to him and soon, in 1936, Azerbaijan’s National Committee of Education sent Tofig Guliyev to Moscow State Conservatory named after Tschaikovsky on Uzeyir Hajibeyov’s advice and initiative. There he learnt conduct and for some time studied in fortepiano class of professor Neyhauz. Soon he began to work as a pianist at well-known Estrada orchestra of those times under A. Zfasmann’s guidance, where he successfully worked till 1939.