DIRECTIONS: St Francis Episcopal Church
Guitar Virtuoso Rovshan Mamedkuliev in concert
with a Prelude performance by the Cypress Strings Guitar Quartet
Rovshan Mamedkuliev has performed throughout the world. His solo career has taken him to numerous places and cities such as Moscow, Los-Angeles, Toronto, Tokyo, Beijing, Brasilia, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Helsinki, Zagreb, Belgrade, Istanbul, Vilnius, Sarajevo, Chisinau, Baku, Minsk, Seoul, Bangkok and others.
In 2012, he gave a solo concert in New York's Carnegie Hall and concertized performing in numerous cities throughout Germany and Spain. In the 2013-2014 concert season after winning GFA's International Concert Artist Competition, Rovshan gave a Solo concert tour (51 concert) and master-classes throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. In 2017, Rovshan gave a solo concert in Amsterdam Concertgebouw.
As a soloist Rovshan has performed with a wide variety of ensembles and orchestras including: l’Ensemble orchestral de Valencia (Spain), Orchestre du Conservatoire National de Musique Superiur de Paris (France), Azerbaijani State Chamber Orchestra named after Kara Karaev, Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra, State Symphony Orchestra of the Udmurt Republic.
Rovshan Mamedkuliev was born in May 1986 in Baku, Azerbaijan. A couple years later, Rovshan and his family moved to Nizhny Novgorod (Russia), where at the age of 11 he started taking guitar lessons. From a very early age he showed an exceptional musical talent. In 2004 he was accepted to the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatoire where he studied with nationally recognized guitarist Aleksey Petropavlovsky. Throughout his study professors described Rovshan as having «an excellent ear, tenacious memory, a developed sense of rhythm and form and bright artistry». He completed his studies with Honors in 2009 and was invited to teach at Nizhny Novgorod Conservatoire. From 2014 Rovshan Mamedkuliev — a professor of the classical guitar department in the Maimonides Academy (Moscow).
Rovshan has premiered many new works for classical guitar, including Concerto № 3 «Antony» for guitar and symphonic orchestra by Philippe Lemaigre (Antony, France, 2012), Concerto «Famalicao» by Elena Lebedeva for guitar and chamber orchestra (Kostroma, Russia, 2008), new works for solo guitar Nikita Koshkin and Sergey Rudnev.
Rovshan Mamedkuliev also performs his own arrangements. He released an arrangement of music by Russian composers («Masters of Russian Composition: Alexander Borodin and Anatoly Lyadov», MelBay Publications, USA, 2014) and an arrangement of the music by his native Azerbaijani composer («Fikret Amirov. 6 Miniatures», LACG Editions, USA, 2015).
A number of works are recorded by Rovshan on CDs: his first professional CD «Con Anima» (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, 2011), a Guitar Recital CD at the Laureate Series on the prestigious label «Naxos» (Toronto, Canada, 2012), a Solo CD «Semi-Awake, Semi-Dream» on the «Contrastes Records» (Sevilla, Spain, 2015). In January of 2016 Rovshan Mamedkuliev recorded his second CD on «Naxos» (Toronto, Canada).
Rovshan Mamedkuliev plays the guitar made by Manuel Contreras II (Model "10th Anniversary") and uses strings from "Savarez" and case from "CCcases".
Prelude performer: Cypress Strings Guitar Quartet
The Cypress Strings Guitar Quartet is directed by Anthony DeMers.
