Monâjât Yulchieva en ensemble (Oezbekistan)

Central Asia has for thousands of years been a cultural crossroads where many great civilisations were born. All these cultures and dynasties have left a highly refined artistic heritage. For five hundred years, until the Russian revolution, the courts of Bukhara and Khiva were especially well known for their outstanding music. After the Islamization of Turkestan, this music absorbed influences from the Middle East while preserving major elements from Persian and Arabian culture: rhythm, the suite or 'nawba' and the melodic structure or 'maqam'. Monâjât Yulchieva was born in the Ferghana area, where the structure is called 'Chahar Maqam'. Monâjât, whose name means 'ascending to God', inherited her passion for the 'Uzbek Blues' from her mother, a farmer's daughter from Ferghana Valley. It was the rebab-player Shavkat Mirzaev who discovered her as a young singer and made her into the monument of Uzbek music. She broke with every social code by singing these songs as a woman and brought the wrath of the Communist occupiers down on her head by refusing to replace the old Sufi lyrics with political tracts.