Uzbek Music

Uzbek Music is the music of Uzbekistan, a Central Asian tradition whose classical core is the shashmaqam, a cycle of six suites of vocal and instrumental pieces performed on dutar and tanbur lutes, frame drum (doira) and spike fiddle. Around this court and urban repertory sit regional folk styles, the epic singing of bakhshi narrators, and the wedding and dance musics of the Fergana Valley and Khorezm. In the Soviet period the tradition was reorganised into state ensembles and conservatory training, and after independence Uzbek estrada pop, led by singers such as *Sevara Nazarkhan*, carried classical material to international audiences through #Real World Records#.