iFest Dates/Times
Bud Light World Music Stage
April 29, 8:50pm - with Kronos Quartet
HEB Cultural Stage
April 30, 3:30pm - Workshop "Music of Afghanistan"
Asia Society Texas Center Stage
Aprli 30, 7pm
Genre
Silk Road
Bio
Homayun Sakhi is a master of the Afghan rubab—the double-chambered lute that's at the heart of Afghanistan's Pashtun klasik tradition. Born in Kabul in 1976, Sakhi was heir to one of Afghanistan's great musical dynasties. His father, Ghulam Sakhi was a student and brother-in-law of Ustad Mohammed Omar, a revered musician with a direct link to the origins of Afghan classical music. Growing up in Kuchech Kharabat—Kabul's famed musicians quarter—Homayun readily absorbed many musical styles, from Afghani classical music to Persian ghazals and Hindustani ragas; as well as Indian and Pakistani cinema music and Western pop and classical sounds.
In 2001, he secured a visa to travel to the United States. While many of his contemporaries were returning to rebuild their country after the fall of the Taliban, Sakhi was quietly building a new life in the Afghan enclave of Freemont, California. There he founded another music school and resumed his recording and performing career, now working closely with another Kabuli master musician, tabla-player Toryalai Hashimi. Together, the duo has begun making inroads beyond the Afghan community, recording their first album for the Smithsonian Folkways label in 2005, and touring internationally as part of the Smithsonian/ Aga Khan Trust For Culture's Music and Voices of Central Asia tour.
