Eugene Leung

This strand explores creativity in Tajik-Uzbek ‘national’ music through the figure of the bastakor, the creator of new works in traditional styles by drawing on the maqām traditions of Bukhara, Khorezm, and Ferghana-Tashkent, as well as more popular genres influenced by them. Although these maqām repertoires are viewed as closed, manybastakor compositions are recognised as extensions that sustain the tradition’s vitality. This practice of creative adaptation has endured from the Soviet period to the present day. Focusing on Uzbekistan, we seek to understand the development of creative process of bastakors from the 20th century to today through ethnographic and music analytical research, attending to both compositional strategies, especially in the use of traditional musical materials, as well as the wider performance and social contexts that inform such creativities.