Faraj Gara oglu Garayev (Azerbaijani: Fərəc Qara oğlu Qarayev); December 19, 1943 in Baku) is an Azerbaijani composer, music instructor, professor, son of the prominent Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev and one of the leading composers of post-Soviet period.

From 1966 to 2003, he taught composition, instrumentation and polyphony at the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire and from 1994 he has been a professor there.

In 1991, he became professor of the faculty of music theory at the Moscow State Conservatoire.

Compositions by Garayev are performed at festivals and concerts in the CIS countries, Europe, South America, the USA and Japan.

Conductors such as Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vassily Sinaisky, Alexander Lazarev, Maxim Shostakovich (the USSR, Russia), Rauf Abdullayev (Azerbaijan), Ingo Metzmacher (Germany), Reinbert de Leeuw and Ed Spanjaard (Netherlands), Ensemble of soloists of the Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), “Studio of new music” (Moscow), Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt, Germany), Nieuw Ensemble and Schoenberg Ensemble (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Quatuor Danel (France), Continuum (New York City, USA) and others are among performers of his compositions.