 At the age of 15, she made her first stage appearance at the Taghiyev Theatre in Baku, performing a piece from Uzeyir Hajibeyov's "Husband and Wife".In 1915, she got admitted to a post-secondary program at the Kiev Conservatory, where she met Reinhold Glière, a Russian composer.Glière showed keen interest in Azeri folk music and Mammadova's acquaintanceship resulted in his visit to the Karabakh region, where he got to meet with a number of professional mugham performers.