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Бекен

There in the reading hall of the Arts’ department is organized the book exhibition “The king of the Kazakh waltz – Beken Zhamakayev”, dedicated to the 90-th birthday of the composer, “the king of the Kazak waltzes”, the Honored figure of arts of the Kazakh SSR, announcer, actor Zhamakayev Beken Zhumabekuly.

Beken Zhamakayev was born on March 17, 1931 in the village of Sarazhal of the Abayevskiy district of the Semipalatinskiy region in the family of an ordinary peasant.

In 1937 he entered the secondary school №17 in Semipalatinsk city. He finished seven classes. From his childhood he was attracted by art. Already in 1946 he started working as an artiste in the Semipalatinsk regional dramatic theatre after Abai. In 1948 he entered the Semipalatinsk pedagogical school after Abai and finished it with honours. In the 1950-s he worked at the Semipalatinsk regional radio-committee as a literary worker, censor and announcer.

He possessed the perfect hearing and the extremely expressive and beautiful voice.

Beken Zhamakayev died in January, 1972 and didn’t live up to his 41-rst birthday only two months. The composer wrote more than 70 songs. The most well-known of his works is the song “Makhabbat valsy”, the words to which were written by the poet Nutfolla Shakenov. The waltz is dedicated to the spouse of the composer – Mainur Nurgaziyevna. “Makhabbat valsy” is the hymn to their love.

One day the young composer being the guest of the well-known writer Mukhtar Auezov, performed the song “Makhabbat valsy”. The writer liked the song very much and he remarked that the melody awakes in him the dear recollections. After the meeting the writer named the young composer “the king of the Kazakh waltzes”.

Together with Shamshi Kaldayakov Zhamakayev is the author of many Kazakh waltzes. The famous waltz was for the first time performed by the People’s artiste of the USSR and the People’s hero of Kazakhstan Roza Baglanova. It was namely in the performance of Roza Baglanova that the waltz thundered for the whole country and it started to be performed at many concerts. At the end of ther 50-s Roza Baglanova was performing at the World exhibition in Brussels where she sang “Makhabbat valsy”. At that time the foreign spectators heard this song for the first time and they loved it from the first accords. The queen of Belgium personally came to the theatre to listen to the song and expressed her admiration. And in 1957 in Tashkent there at the conference of the composers of the countries of Asia and Africa where Roza Baglanova again performed “Makhabbat valsy”, Miklhail Sholokhov was also struck by the beauty and melodiousness of the song. In different times “Makhabbat valsdy” was performed also by Roza Rymbayeva.

Becoming inspired by “Makhabbat valsy”, Beken Zhamakayev created many works also successful like this one. His songs “Sulu sary”, “Mereke valsy”, “Ertys valsy”, “Sen gana”, “Koshtasu”, “Gyulim kaida” and others became the loved people’s songs and entered the thesaurus of Kazakh popular music. After his name there were named the streets in the cities of Almaty and Semei.

There at the book exhibition are presented the materials about the life and creative activity of Zhamakayev Beken Zhumabekuly from the fond of the book and periodical editions off National library of the RK.

                        We invite everybody to the book exhibition!