Virtuoso from Afghanistan

Mohammad Omar is one of the most famous performers on the rubab. Until the 1980s, he led the orchestra of Radio Kabul, which included musicians from all over Afghanistan, and in 1974, he became the first Afghan musician to give lectures in Washington. Omar's first performance in front of a Western audience took place there. Most of his works consisted of shakal, an improvisational introduction in one musical mode, and nagma, a composition in the same mode with a complex rhythm and a repeating melody. Accompanying Omar was the master of the tabla, Zakir Hussain. The musicians met for the first time in the morning before the concert and found out that they spoke different languages. Fortunately, this did not prove to be an obstacle. The concert was so well received that its recording was distributed worldwide for many years, but only in 2002, a year after the retreat of the Taliban from Kabul, was it officially released.

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