Badakhshani music and dance represent a distinct cultural practice within Central Asia that has been shaped by the combined forces of geography, history, language, and religion. In Tajik Badakhshan, where the majestic Pamirs reach heights only slightly lower than those of the Himalayas, rugged terrain has impeded contact between Pamiri peoples and inhabitants of other regions of Central Asia. One consequence of ...
Mashallah Bameri, Balochi musician from Southeren Iran (1950-2011) Bameri showed interest in music when he was only eight and began to learn doholak (a kind of regional drum). He also liked singing and used to sing in the well-known regional ceremonies. ...
Hamid Khezri, dotar player and singer, is renowned as a versatile musician equally at home in a wide range of musical styles ranging from the folk music of his North Khorassan home, the Sufi music of the South Khorassan deserts and the troubadour traditions of the mountains of North Khorassan to original compositions and a variety of cross-over projects. Whether as a ...
Mashallah Bameri, Balochi musician from Southeren Iran (1950-2011) Bameri showed interest in music when he was only eight and began to learn doholak (a kind of regional drum). He also liked singing and used to sing in the well-known regional ceremonies. ...
One of the most interesting phenomenon of Boysun culture is the art of "bakhshi". These are folk artists who perform in the classical Turkic genre of sung improvisation with accompanied by the two-string dombra, a popular music instrument. Bakhshi singing is remarkable, with a very ancient guttural manner of performance that imitates the growling of a predatory animal. There has even been ...
Komuz player Ruslan Jumabaev (b. 1973), one of the leading instrumentalists of his generation, grew up in a musical family in Naryn, and began playing komuz at the age of six. He is a graduate of Bishkek Conservatory, and has a baccalaureate degree in law. ...
A living legend in Azerbaijan is Edalat Nasibov, whose improvisational style on the saz, a long-necked lute, is based on the vocal repertory of Azeri bards (ashiq). Strumming on a saz, Nasibov imitates the inflections of a bard's voice. ...
An Ashik (Azerbaijani: Aşıq, Turkish: Aşık, Persian: عاشیق, Armenian: Աշուղ, ashugh, Georgian: აშუღი, English: ashughi, Greek: ασίκης) is a mystic troubadour or travelling bard, in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran、 who sings and plays the saz, a form of lute. Ashiks' songs are semi-improvised around common bases. The word Ashik derives from the Arabic word Asheq (عاشق), and means the "one ...
Abdurahim Hamidov (1952 - 2013), the great master of Uzbek dutar. Abdurahim Hamidov was born in 1952, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His ancestors were merchants, his father and grandfather were mullahs. He began learning music at the age of six by singing the entire repertoire of children's songs. A year later he began playing the rabab, a long-necked lute; and at the age of ...
From Mongolian singing to Azeri Mugham, performed by the best female singers of today. ...
"In the month of Ramadan of the year 899 [June 1494] and in the twelfth year of my age, I became ruler in the country of Ferghana." Thus begins the remarkable autobiography of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, whose journey of conquest through Afghanistan and Hindustan--the northern part of the Indian Subcontinent--laid the foundation of the Mughal Empire. In a modern day encore of the ...
"Working with Kronos [America's premier new music quartet], I realized that through music you can cross not only boundaries between different regions of Afghanistan, but even bigger boundaries, such as between East and West," reveals Homayun Sakhi. "When we play together, the music really connects well and we all get a lot of pleasure from it." A bold collaboration between America's premier new ...
"Globalization of course acts on tradition," said Mahmudjon Tojibaev in a wide-ranging discussion that followed the recording session for In the Shrine of the Heart. "But a lot of young people are studying at the conservatory [in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan] in the traditional singing department. In Communist times, you could count on your fingers the number of people who studied traditional ...
Alim Qasimov and his daughter Fargana exemplify the explosive artistic energy that results when a powerful musical model ignites the spark of young talent. ...
The Badakhshan Ensemble takes its name from the mountainous region - poetically known in Persian as Bam-i Dunya, the "Roof of the World" - that comprises the sparsely populated eastern half of Tajikistan and northeast Afghanistan. There, nestled in a series of riverine valleys that descend from the Pamir Mountains to the Panj River, the boundary line between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, are ...
Bardic Divas comprises an eclectic compilation of soloists and small ensembles whose repertoire represents the rich and diverse traditions of Central Asian bards. Some of these traditions are specific to female performers and have typically been performed within a social milieu restricted to women. ...
Homayun Sakhi is the outstanding Afghan rubâb player of his generation, a brilliant virtuoso endowed with a charismatic musical presence and personality. During Afghanistan's long years of armed conflict, when music was heavily controlled, censored, repressed, and, finally, totally banned, the classical rubâb style to which Homayun has devoted his career not only survived but reached new creative heights. ...
The Academy of Maqâm takes its name from the venerable tradition of classical or court music that spans the core Muslim world from Casablanca, Morocco, to Kashgar in western China. The founding vision of the Academy belongs to Abduvali Abdurashidov, a Tajik musician and scholar who has brought new vitality to the performance of maqâm through a critical and historical study of ...
Tengir-Too is a new ensemble that plays old music. The group takes its name from the mountain range that towers over the high alpine passes linking Kyrgyzstan and China and that is better known by its Chinese name, Tien Shan: "Celestial Mountains." Founded and directed by Nurlanbek Nyshanov, a gifted composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, Tengir-Too (Too is pronounced like "toe") provides a ...
