Aida Huseynova's book, Music of Azerbaijan: From Mugham to Opera, is well-researched and thoughtfully structured. The writing is fluent and pleasant to read, and the book achieves its goal of providing a detailed overview of composed music in Azerbaijan in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Huseynova deftly refutes existing arguments about the Russian roots of compositional schools in Central Asia and the Caucasus that stem from Soviet-era projects. This framework is not applicable in the case of Azerbaijani art music, since Azerbaijani composers' engagement with western art music both precedes and outlives the Soviet era. Such arguments have stronger grounding in other republics, such as Uzbekistan, where Russian composers brought western art music to its inception.

Huseynova's research draws on a large body of data from archival and ethnographic sources, and she includes helpful maps and pictures in the book. While some aspects of the discussion are illustrated with musical scores and transcription, the book is still relatively approachable for non-specialists. The book is well structured: it opens and closes with Uzeyir Hajibeyli's (Hajibeyov's) Layla and Mejnun, a seminal work whose influence has pervaded the twentieth and current centuries. The intervening chapters address musical case studies involving western art music, mugham (traditional modal music), jazz, and popular music. The project has remarkable breadth and maintains a rigorous approach to the material throughout.

With its detailed illustration of compositional and musical developments in Azerbaijan since the late nineteenth Century, Music of Azerbaijan is an invaluable source for those of us who research and teach the musics and cultures of Central Asia and the Caucasus. For example, the introduction includes the best concise overview of mugham that I have read, and which I plan to include in my courses on Central Asian music.

A main theme in Music of Azerbaijan is east/west syncretism, hybrids, and synthesis. These terms and their associated processes bolster her arguments and are clearly meaningful to musicians and composers in the region. However, Huseynova applies these terms without discussion of the literature beyond musicology and ethnomusicology. For example, Huseynova defines syncretism in terms of ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl's usage, but doesn't reference the larger discussions and critiques of the term in religious studies and anthropology. Furthermore, while the framework of east versus west (and the specific way that eastern and western elements combine in Azerbaijani music) is potent and seems to resonate with many of Huseynova's research collaborators, I am concerned that the binary allows readers to overlook more nuanced arguments or complicating factors that occur as colonialist notions of east and west have broken down in recent years. That said, Music in Azerbaijan does present a nuanced account of Azerbaijani composers and the music that they write. Huseynova contextualizes this material within existing musicological and ethnomusicological scholarship, citing works by Irina Naroditskaya, Anna Oldfield, Richard Taruskin, Marina Frolova Walker, and others. Within its scope, the book succeeds marvelously.

Huseynova is a versatile scholar who has collaborated and worked with musicians and scholars throughout the world, including her consulting work with Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Project and the Aga Kham Music Initiative. Her accounts of musical projects associated with those organizations are rich and detailed, and have an understandably laudatory tone. However, some acknowledgement of possible critiques and/or alternative perspectives would improve those sections. In sum, this is a useful addition to the existing English-language literature on the music of the Caucasus that, despite a few limitations, succeeds in presenting a clear and fleshed-out narrative of the development of contemporary music in Azerbaijan.