Mohammad Omar (musician)

Ustad Mohammad Omar (1905–1980) was a musician from Afghanistan who played the rubab.

Early life and career[]

Mohammad Omar began music lessons under his father, Ibrahim, who taught him singing, sarod, rubab and dutar. In the mid-20th century, he was Director of the National Orchestra of Radio Afghanistan, which brought together folk musicians from the different regions and distinct ethnic communities of Afghanistan.^[1]

In 1974, Mohammad Omar received a Fulbright-Hays Foreign Scholar Fellowship to teach at the University of Washington, making him the first Afghan musician to teach at a major university in the United States. On November 18, 1974, Mohammad Omar gave a public concert at the university, his first rabab performance in front of a Western audience; he was accompanied on tabla by Zakir Hussain. In 1978 he met the German jazz-rock groupe Embryo at the Goethe Institut in Kabul. The concert was filmed for the movie Vagabundenkarawane by Werner Penzel.

Discography[]

• Embryo's Reise 1980 (Schneeball 20)
• Virtuoso from Afghanistan 2002 (SFW)

Notes[]

External links[]

• Smithsonian Folkways Page on Ustad Mohammad Omar
• Review of one of his albums on RootsWorld
• World Music Central - Ustad Mohammad Omar

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