Bards of the Golden Road: the Music of the Stans

The Central Asian republics- Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan – cover an area ten times the size of Britain, stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Chinese border. For many years, their music filtered out as an exotic and peripheral sound from the Soviet Union, but with their independence, the Stans have begun […]

Continue Reading

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: the Voice from Heaven

  No page on all things Central Asian could ever be complete without a mention of Pakistani-born Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a singer of mainly Qawwali music and who, amongst those in the know, simply went by the nick “The voice from heaven” – which was just my impression when I first heard him sing […]

Continue Reading