THE World Classics Series at St Ives Arts Club – supported by the Asian Music Circuit and St Ives Arts Club – presents Mugham & Ashiq Music of Azerbaijan tomorrow (Friday) at 7.30pm.

Musicians from Azerbaijan are coming to St Ives as part of a week-long UK tour that also includes The Sage Gateshead, London's Purcell Room and the National Centre for Early Music in York. The St Ives performance is the musicians' only appearance in the South West, so don't miss this unique opportunity.

Visitors to this year's WOMAD will be delighted to hear that star Azeri performer Gochaq Askarov – renowned across the Caucasus for his high, plaintive voice with its soft, rich timbre – is returning to the UK for these concerts.

Gochaq, who featured heavily in Lucy Duran's 2008 Radio 3 documentary on Azeri music, sings in the mugham style, and will be accompanied on this Asian Music Circuit UK tour by a host of great mugham and ashiq musicians from Azerbaijan. The music and the musicians will be introduced by eminent Azerbaijani musicologist Sanubar Bagirova.

The word mugham refers both to a genre of traditional Azeri art music and to a melodic style. Performance of mugham requires an exceptional musical memory, a fine ear and great improvisational ability.

The line-up for the mugham ensemble for the present tour will be the standard three-piece set-up of voice, tar and kamancha. The vocal soloist Gochaq Askarov, who will accompany himself on percussion, will be joined by Malik Mansurov on tar (long-necked lute) and Elshan Mansurov on kamancha (spike fiddle).

To offer UK audiences a further taste of what Azeri music has to offer, the Asian Music Circuit has invited four brilliant ashiq musicians to complement the mugham ensemble.

The art of ashiq is an ancient bardic tradition mainly practised in the old Turkic world (from Turkey to North-West China).

An ashiq is a poet, composer, singer and musical performer, and occasionally a dancer, who plays the 'saz, long-necked lute and improvises serenades and ballads.

The musical and poetic heritage of Azerbaijani ashiqs dates back to the 14th century, and is still passed on in oral form.

The ashiq ensemble for this tour comprises the following musicians: Aytekin Akbarova, a composer of many poems and melodies who performs in an expressive and emotional style, Ramin Garayev, a brilliant representative of the Borchaly (Azeri Georgian) school, deriving from the original form of ashiq singing, talented saz player Azer Maharramov, who learnt from his father, the famous Azeri ashiq Khanlar Maharramov and Qalandar Zeynalov, one of Azerbaijan's most popular ashiqs.

Tickets are £12 from Will Sleath on 01736 794477, St Ives Tourist Information on 01736 796297 and West Penwith Music on 01736 364440.