Ustad Mohammad Omar

Ustad Mohammad Omar (1905-1980) was a Afghan folk musician and virtuoso of the rabab which he helped turn into a respected classical solo instrument. He came from a family of musicians in Kabul where he began musical training at ten years old under his father Ustad Ibrahim who taught him to sing and play the sarad, rabab and dutar. At the age 32 he joined the staff of Radio Afghanistan and eventually rose to become the director of the National Orchestra of Radio Afghanistan for whom he composed over 100 melodies called naghma. In 1974 Omar was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Foreign Scholar Fellowship to teach at the University of Washington in Seattle, becoming the first Afghan musician to teach his music and instrument at a major American university.