JazzErie is in its fourteenth year of service to the Erie jazz community. JazzErie is a community of music lovers and musicians, and a membership organization dedicated to sharing with children, adults and one another an awareness and love of music, particularly jazz. JazzErie brings together people who want to listen to jazz, learn about it, play it and just live it.
By Bob PROTZMAN
Contributing Writer
While learning to play Bach, Rachmaninoff, et al, Amina Figarova also was listening to Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson and other jazz greats, and eventually, the child of classical music became a grownup jazz musician.
"A classical music education takes a lot of time, so that's what I concentrated on, but I always listened to jazz," recalled the 42-year-old jazz pianist/composer/leader by phone from her home in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
In her native Baku, Azerbaijan (located on the Caspian Sea between Iran and Russia), Figarova's parents started her on piano at the tender age of 2 learning the classical masters, but at the same time, the two jazz fans used their extensive record collection to expose their daughter to celebrated jazz artists.
After classical training at the Baku Conservatory and later at the Rotterdam Conservatory, Figarova accepted the suggestion of a noted European pianist and switched her focus to jazz.
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Frank Singer
Updated June 29, 2008
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