Munadjat Yulchieva | en

Munadjat Yulchieva (also spelled Monâjât Yultchieva, Uzbek: Munojot Yo'Ichiyeva, Cyrillic: Муножот Йўлчиева; born 1960) is the leading performer of classical Uzbek music and its Persian-language cousin Shashmaqam. She is famous for the unique quality of her voice and her natural charisma. Yulchieva was born in 1960 in the Ferghâna valley near Tashkent, and from an early age it was obvious she had a great gift as a singer. This nearly resulted in her being channelled into a career as an opera singer, but she was inexorably drawn towards the slow, aching music of her own ancient culture, something that seemed...