The outstanding Azerbaijani and Soviet composer, pedagogue, People's Artist of the USSR, Kara Karayev, was born on February 5th 1918 in Baku in a family of well-known pediatrician, Abulfaz Karayev. He studied piano at the Baku Music College and then at the Baku Music Academy, where Rudolf Leopold (composition class) and Uzeyir Hajibeyli (base folk music) were among his teachers.
In 1937, Karayev joined the Union of Composers of the Azerbaijan SSR.
In 1938 Karayev moved to the Moscow State Conservatoire, where he became a student of Anatoly Alexandrov, Sergei Vasilenko and Dmitri Shostakovich.
The composer was a laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1946, the opera 'Motherland', 1948, the symphonic poem 'Leyli and Majnun'), the State Prize of Azerbaijan SSR (1965) and the Lenin Prize (1967, the ballet 'Path of Thunder').
Kara Karayev died on May 13th 1982, he was buried at the Alley of Honor in Baku.
