With members of the Marg’ilan Maqom Theatre 

In April 2025, Rachel Harris and Aziz Isa Elkun were generously hosted by the Maqom School led by Ulug’bek Mamadjanov, and the Maqom Theatre led by Fazil Ismailov. Both are recently established, on the foundation of existing music institutions, but with a new focus on maqom. 

The Maqom School holds several hundred students of school age, and several dozen talented teachers who are mainly local to the Fergana Valley but trained in the Tashkent conservatory. They teach a range of instrumental and vocal genres, but the emphasis is on maqom, both local and national styles.  

Clip1:  Intizor, a student at the Maqom School, sings an excerpt from Gulyor Shahnoz accompanied on qanun and doira, supported by her vocal teacher, Sayohat. 

The qanun seems to have arrived in Uzbekistan as recently as the 1980s, and it has now become central to professional maqom performance. Played here by Jevher, another teacher in the school, it accompanies this gorgeous arrangement of a piece from the Fergana-Tashkent Maqom tradition with delicate flourishes.  

This is not the only instrument from other parts of the maqam world to have become rooted in Uzbekistan in recent decades; the oud is also common in the professional ensembles, and the tar has almost replaced the tanbur as the instrument of choice for amateur singers in the Fargana Valley.  

The Kashgar rubab is another mid-twentieth century borrowing now firmly established in Uzbekistan’s ensembles. Some Uyghur songs have also found their way into the professional repertoire in Fargana. One of the school ensembles performed a piece for us called Uyghurche: an arrangement of the popular Uyghur folk song, Rozilem.

Clip 2: Uyghurche, performed by students of the Farg’ona Maqom School 

The Marg’ilan Maqom Theatre employs an impressive roster of 130 singers, instrumentalists, actors and dancers, and specialises in performing and creating new musical theatre ‘spectacles’ based on historical stories and enriched with musical arrangements from the maqom repertoire.  

Actors and dancers of the Marg’ilan Maqom Theatre

The theatre’s librettist Tolib’jon Ruzibayev, a poet and historian, has created dramas based on stories of the life of Nawo’i and Mashrab. They took their Navo’i spectacle to Jizzakh last year to perform it at the grand opening ceremony of the International Maqom Festival. 

Clip 3: The choir of the Farg’ona Maqom Theatre perform an excerpt from Saroxbor Buzruq, part of their new spectacle: Navo’i. 

We are most grateful to Fazil aka and Tolib’jon aka for their very kind hospitality during this visit. 

Finally, here is a Uyghur language report on our visit to the Fargana Valley, film produced by Uyghur Info / Uyghur Projects Foundation:


 

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