Alim Qasimov: the living legend you’ve never heard of | Timesonline

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Our correspondent travels to Azerbaijan to meet and hear Alim Qasimov, soon to be performing with the Kronos Quartet in London, and revered as ‘one of the five best singers of all time’

The slight man with silver hair looks up at the arched roof of the museum and begins to sing. His voice soars and, as his daughter joins in, the mood is transformed: they are no longer simply singing but communicating with another world.

The effect is devastating, the half dozen people watching seized by the power of the ancient poetry, but none of us is surprised. “I wouldn’t say Alim Qasimov is the greatest singer alive,” David Harrington, of the Kronos Quartet, had said a few days earlier, “but he is up there in the top five of all time.”

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