Shevket Gasan Kyzy Mamedova

Born Apr. 18, 1897, in Tbilisi. Soviet Azerbaijani singer (lyric-coloratura soprano), teacher, and prominent figure in music. People’s Artist of the USSR (1938). Became a member of the CPSU in 1942.

Mamedova studied at the Kiev Conservatory from 1917 to 1921 and in Milan and Paris from 1927 to 1929. She was a soloist at the M. F. Akhundov Azerbaijan Theater of Opera and Ballet in Baku between 1922 and 1948. Her roles have included Giul’-chokhra in Gadzhibekov’s Arshin mal alan, the title roles in Glière’s Shah-Senem and Magomaev’s Nergiz, Antonida in Glinka’s Ivan Susanin, and Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

Mamedova organized Azerbaijan’s first theatrical school in 1923 and the republic’s music publishing house in 1924. She is the author of The Paths of Development of the Azerbaijan Musical Theater (1931). In 1945, Mamedova began teaching at the Azerbaijan Conservatory, becoming a professor there in 1949. A deputy to the first four convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR, she has been awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and several medals.