SEVARA NAZARKHAN (UZBEKISTAN)
Garth Cartwright (courtesy of fRoots)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/awards2005/profile_sevaranazarkhan.shtml


Sevara Nazarkhan is the first musician from Uzbekistan to find a
warm welcome in the West. The Central Asian state is proud of its
ancient cultural history and across several millennia much fine
music has travelled from the ancient cities of Samarkand and
Tashkent down the Silk Road so to cross-pollinate across Western
Asia. Yet under Soviet rule little was heard from Uzbekistan and its
culture largely existed in a vacuum.

Sevara has busily been making up for lost time: growing up in the
Uzbek capital of Tashkent she attended music classes from an early
age, studying the traditional instrument, the doutar. In 1996 she
joined an all-women doutar ensemble and then enrolled in the Uzbek
National Conservatory. In 1999 she was drafted in as a member of
Uzbekistan's answer to The Spice Girls and became something of a pop
star in Uzbekistan. Yet Sevara's ambitions did not stop at being the
local Geri Haliwell, instead she made contact with the UK's Real
World label. This lead to her being offered a suddenly vacant space
at Womad 2000. Here the unknown singer managed to impressed all who
saw her – including Peter Gabriel. Gabriel duly signed Sevara to
Real World and matched her up with noted French Algerian producer
Hector Zazou.

Zazou came to Uzbekistan and managed to match his lush, electronic
production style with Sevara's traditional Uzbeki sensibility so
resulting in her acclaimed 2003 Real World debut "Yol Bolsin".
Sevara has since gone on to open concerts for Peter Gabriel as he
toured the world, guest on Charlie Gillett's BBC London radio show
and headline The Barbican's X-Bloc Revisited festival. All the while
her musical beauty opens ears to the sound of Uzbekistan.

"Instruments and music are always travelling and developing," says
Sevara. "That's why I believe it is so important to listen to
traditional music and the instruments. This in turn enables me to go
further and experiment with other sounds."