Music - The Times Of Central Asia

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TCA Interviews

“Music Is Born in Pain”: Kazakh Composer Robert Ziganshin on Inspiration, Integrity, and Creative Freedom

Robert Ziganshin is one of Kazakhstan’s most in-demand film composers. A graduate of the Lyon Conservatory in France, where he studied classical guitar and earned master’s degrees in both music for the visual arts and musicology, he returned home to rapidly establish himself in the country's film and television industry. Ziganshin’s credits include music for popular TV series and films such as Alisher Utev’s crime drama 5:32 (IMDB), the box office hit Kazakh Business in Brazil, and Malika, a feature film by Russian director Natalya Uvarova about a family of Ingush migrants. In an interview with The Times of Central Asia, Ziganshin spoke about the influence of the French school, the ethics of film composition, and why writing music “that simply comments on the action” can mean sacrificing artistic integrity. TCA: Robert, you graduated from KIMEP in Kazakhstan. How did you end up in France? Ziganshin: I’ve been passionate about music since early childhood. Even when I was playing with building blocks, I was always humming something, as if adding a soundtrack to my own stories. I didn’t get into music school, and it wasn’t until I was fifteen that I started taking private guitar lessons. There were times I practiced six hours a day. There was no higher education in classical guitar in Kazakhstan at the time, so I enrolled at KIMEP. After graduating, I applied to two conservatories in France and was accepted to the one in Lyon. TCA: Why France? Ziganshin: I spoke fluent French. My father had sent me to language school, and I took part in competitions. Later, a professor from Lyon gave a master class in Almaty, and I helped translate for him. He assessed my level and encouraged me to apply to his course. TCA: Was tuition really that affordable? Ziganshin: For foreign students, it was about €900 per year, including health insurance. Compared to the UK, it was a bargain. I spent four years there and earned a bachelor’s degree. TCA: How did you shift into composing for film? Ziganshin: I met students from the program Musique appliquée aux arts visuels, music created for film, theater, performance, and media art. I wanted to try it. The entrance exam was creative: we had to score scenes and compose music for a three-minute video in a week. I got in on my second try, only twelve of us were accepted. It was a two-year program, starting with orchestration and sound engineering, then moving into practical work on student film projects. TCA: What was the subject of your master’s thesis? Ziganshin: When should a composer start work on a film? Personally, I prefer being involved from the script stage. After finishing that degree, I also enrolled in a master’s in musicology. In 2021, I returned to Kazakhstan. I struggled to find paid work in music and almost joined my father’s printing business. I even started hand-making notebooks, neat and beautiful ones. But soon, small offers started coming in, and I returned to composing full-time, initially...

Cultural Heritage

From the Highlands to the Steppes: The Long Journey of the Bagpipe

On 28 July 2025, as the skirl of bagpipes echoed across the windswept greens of President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort, two world leaders met under the Scottish flag. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump gathered for “wide-ranging talks” on trade and global conflicts — yet it was the sound of a Scottish pipe band that first captured attention. For President Trump, whose mother was born in the Outer Hebrides, the music carried a personal resonance. The bagpipe, long a symbol of Scotland’s spirit, continues to speak across generations and continents — from clan gatherings and state ceremonies to moments of diplomacy. Its sound is unmistakably Scottish: bold, mournful, and proud. Yet across the ancient world, far beyond the Highlands, other peoples once drew the same haunting tones from leather and reed — among them the nomads of what is now Kazakhstan. Echoes from the East Centuries before the first Highland marches, nomadic Turkic peoples were playing an instrument remarkably similar in design — the zhelbuaz. Crafted from goat or sheepskin and fitted with two or more reed pipes, it produced the same soulful harmony that defines the modern bagpipe. When filled with air and played from horseback or during ceremonies, it created a sound that was at once haunting and powerful, much like the music that still moves crowds today. As the people of the Central Asian steppes were largely nomadic for most of their history, there is scant hard evidence. However, early scholars described the zhelbuaz (or mes-syrnai) as an ancient wind instrument made from a single piece of animal skin or stomach. Al-Farabi wrote of a “wineskin flute” among the Turkic tribes, and the Chinese traveler Wen Sun, visiting the Orkhon region in the 7th century, reportedly recorded a Turk playing a "leather instrument with two pipes, whose sound deepens the sadness of the mourners.” The Journey Westward Over centuries, the idea of the air-filled reed instrument migrated westward — first through trade and migration, and then through cultural contact. Variants appeared in Eastern Europe: the duda in Poland, the tulum in Azerbaijan, and the musette in France. Linguists note that modern terms such as duu (meaning “song” in Mongolian) and düdük (meaning “whistle” in Turkish) suggest a shared onomatopoetic pattern for wind instruments and vocal sound across Eurasia, hinting at, though not proving, a linguistic thread connecting these distant traditions. But it was in Scotland that the instrument found its fullest voice. There, in the hands of Highland clans, it became more than music — it became identity. The Great Highland Bagpipe emerged as a call to arms, a hymn of remembrance, and a symbol of a people’s endurance. Its power lies not just in its sound, but in what it represents: honor, courage, and belonging. [caption id="attachment_38114" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Image: Ykhlas Museum of Folk Musical Instruments[/caption] The Zhelbuaz Remembered In Kazakhstan, the zhelbuaz gradually disappeared from everyday life, its haunting voice surviving only in oral memory and museum collections. Today, musician Abzal...

Society

Canadian Musician Releases Protest Song About Uzbek Student’s Experience with Wizz Air

Canadian singer-songwriter Dave Carroll, best known for his 2009 viral hit “United Breaks Guitars,” has released a new protest song titled “Don’t Fly Wizness Class,” inspired by the travel ordeal of Uzbek student Suhrob Ubaydullayev. The track and accompanying video, featuring Ubaydullayev himself, highlight his experience with Wizz Air in 2023 and raise broader concerns about discrimination and passenger rights. Carroll first gained international attention after United Airlines damaged his $3,500 Taylor guitar during a 2008 flight and refused to compensate him. In response, he released “United Breaks Guitars,” which amassed over 20 million views on YouTube and reportedly caused a $180 million drop in United’s stock value. The episode sparked industry-wide changes in customer service protocols. More than a decade later, Carroll has turned his attention to another case of alleged mistreatment, this time involving a 24-year-old Uzbek national. His latest song recounts how Ubaydullayev was denied boarding on a Wizz Air flight on August 31, 2023. “I had all my documents in order,” Ubaydullayev previously told The Times of Central Asia. “The staff checked them and returned them to me, but when I reached the gate, they suddenly said I couldn’t fly. No reason. No explanation.” According to Ubaydullayev, one airline employee asked, “Are you from Uzbekistan?” Upon confirming he was, he says he was denied boarding without further justification. What followed, he claims, was a humiliating ordeal: threats to call the police, warnings that the Uzbek embassy could not assist him, and refusal to provide any written explanation. Ubaydullayev had just completed a Work and Travel program in Europe and was returning home. After spending his savings on the now-cancelled flight, he borrowed money to reach Istanbul, where he was robbed and left stranded. “I met some Uzbek guys near the Sultan Ahmed Mosque who offered to help,” he said. “But they ended up taking my money and disappearing.” His journey home eventually took him through Kazan in Russia and Osh in Kyrgyzstan, before he reached the Uzbek city of Namangan, exhausted, indebted, and disillusioned. In May, during a visit to Canada, Ubaydullayev met Carroll in person. “He was kind and respectful,” Ubaydullayev told The Times of Central Asia. “Carroll listened to my story and was deeply moved.” Carroll then turned the young man’s experience into a song, aiming to bring attention to the broader issue of traveler discrimination. “My goal,” Ubaydullayev said, “is to ensure Wizz Air and other airlines stop discriminating against Uzbek citizens and start treating them with respect.”

Q-Pop

Q-Pop Is Back. Is Kazakhstan Ready This Time?

Around 2015, Kazakhstan saw the rise of Q-pop, led by the boy band Ninety One. A decade on, the cultural tension remains: while youth artists enjoy greater visibility, many observers argue that freedom of expression is still shaped by a silent boundary — ‘you can make music, but not stir too much controversy. A little over a decade ago, five young men in earrings and pastel clothes released “Aıyptama!” (“Don’t blame me”) - a slick, catchy track in Kazakh, with a video that looked like it came straight out of Seoul. The group, Ninety One, was born out of a reality TV show modeled on the K-pop system. At the time, Kazakh-language pop had little presence on mainstream radio or TV, where Russian-language and Western hits dominated. Much of the Kazakh-language music most people heard came from weddings and folk performances rather than commercial pop charts. Occidental pop, rock and Russian-language hip hop ruled the charts. So, when Azamat Zenkaev (AZ), Dulat Mukhamedkaliev (Zaq), Daniyar Kulumshin (Bala), Batyrkhan Malikov (Alem), and Azamat Ashmakyn (Ace) debuted as a group, they looked and sounded like nothing the local music scene had ever seen. Their appearance sparked outrage. In Karaganda, a 2016 concert was canceled after protests. “We are against them because they dye their hair and wear earrings!” a demonstrator shouted, captured in the 2021 documentary Men Sen Emes (Sing Your Own Songs) by Katerina Suvorova. “No parent would want their son to look like a woman,” a conservative activist added. Even their producer, Yerbolat Bedelkhan, noted, “They shook up Kazakh show business with their unusual looks.” And yet, their rise was unstoppable. Despite boycotts and online abuse, Ninety One topped national charts. Each video release became an event. Over time, their success helped make gender-fluid aesthetics more visible in Kazakhstan’s pop scene — and made singing in Kazakh fashionable again among young audiences. But their aesthetics stood in sharp contrast to the state-promoted model of Kazakh masculinity. [caption id="attachment_37776" align="aligncenter" width="770"] Ninety One; image: JUZ Entertainment[/caption] Revival and Restriction: The State’s Masculine Ideal In 2017, then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev launched Rukhani Zhangyru – a sweeping state program for “spiritual renewal.” Its goal was to forge a unified Kazakh national identity after decades of Soviet domination, largely by reigniting traditional values. Streets were renamed after historical khans, a National Dombra Day was established, and the country began shifting from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. But the cultural revival came with a gender script. School textbooks were rewritten, according to a 2021 Rutgers University study, to cast masculinity as a blend of strength, rationality, and emotional restraint. The ideal Kazakh man - the Batyr - was reimagined as a stoic warrior of the steppes. In this context, Ninety One’s aesthetics didn’t fit in. “Many thought Q-pop artists didn’t act like ‘real Kazakhs’,” Merey Otan, a musician and PhD candidate at Nazarbayev University told The Times of Central Asia. “Wearing makeup, earrings, or bright clothes, expressing emotions or sexuality – these all clashed with a...

Art and Culture

Tajik Students Win Award in Los Angeles for Music Video Honoring Jalaluddin Rumi

The music video Nai Noumie by Jalaluddin Rumi, directed by Ilyas Daudi, won first place in the “Best Music Video” category at the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood. The project was selected from among hundreds of international submissions. Creating the Project Tajik students Shahriyor Gulmakhmadzoda and Yosuman Ismailova, both studying at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, participated in the video. They recited poetry by the renowned Persian mystic Jalaluddin Rumi, set to music by Iranian composer Arash Faladvand. The composition is part of a trilogy by Daudi dedicated to Eastern philosophy and poetry. According to the director, the choice to involve Tajik students was intentional. “The involvement of students from Farhad Mahmudov’s Tajik workshop was guided by the linguistic and cultural proximity between Persian and Tajik traditions,” Daudi explained. He praised the voices of Yosuman and Shahriyor as perfect for the project. Faladvand’s symphonic piece was adapted into what Daudi described as a “concise rock version with an exquisite professional arrangement.” The project had an international scope from the outset. Iranian historians and linguists contributed to ensuring the poetic integrity of Rumi’s work was faithfully preserved. Daudi, an award-winning director and screenwriter, is also the author of the book In the Kunduz Circle. He has received accolades in Los Angeles, Austin, Berlin, Geneva, Madrid, and other cities. Shahriyor's Story Shahriyor Gulmakhmadzoda, 22, is from the Matchinsky district in Tajikistan's Sughd region. His parents, both farmers, currently work in Russia to support his studies. Passionate about the performing arts from a young age, he participated in school productions and later enrolled at the M. Tursunzade Tajik State Institute of Culture and Arts under the mentorship of Kurbon Sobir, a People’s Artist of Tajikistan. “My parents and my brother Shohrukh always supported my path. My teacher Kurbon Sobir gave me so much and showed great patience to shape me. He helped me enter VGIK through a presidential quota, and Maestro Farhad Makhmudov accepted us. For me, he’s someone I would give all my blood to,” Shahriyor said. Yosuman's Story Yosuman Ismailova, 21, was born in Dushanbe and is originally from Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan region. Her mother worked as a dispatcher at Shabakai Avval (First Channel), and her father, a taxi driver, recently relocated to Moscow. From childhood, Yosuman aspired to perform on stage. She studied vocals and graduated from the A. Bokulov College of Arts. “I still remember my teacher, Irina Norayrovna Arutyunyan, with deep appreciation. She did so much for me, and I’m immensely grateful,” she shared. First Steps into Cinema This summer, both students began their studies in Farhad Makhmudov’s workshop at VGIK. Upon learning about the new Tajik students, Daudi invited them to join his project. “We gladly agreed, even though we had no prior experience. Everything was new, filming, recording vocals, working on set,” Yosuman recalled. Filming took place in VGIK’s training studio and on location in the Zavidovo nature reserve outside Moscow. For Shahriyor and Yosuman, this was their first professional cinematic experience and a...

Backstreet Boys

Backstreet Boys to Perform in Almaty on September 19 for City Day

Almaty is preparing to host one of its most anticipated music events of the year: the legendary Backstreet Boys will perform at Central Stadium on September 19 in celebration of City Day. Organizers have promised a show featuring the group's greatest hits from the 1990s and 2000s, complete with elaborate stage production and the signature energy that made the band a global phenomenon. To ensure public safety, approximately 2,500 police officers will be deployed, alongside on-site ambulance teams and fire crews. The city administration has also announced that 150 volunteers will assist attendees in navigating the venue. LED screens around the stadium will display a hotline number for those needing assistance. [caption id="attachment_36340" align="alignnone" width="300"] @Almaty Akimat[/caption] The concert is expected to attract Almaty residents as well as international fans, some of whom have traveled thousands of kilometers to see the iconic group perform against the backdrop of the Zailiyskiy Alatau mountains. “I bought my ticket back in July and flew in from Minsk just for this show. The city is amazing, and the atmosphere promises to be unforgettable,” said Belarusian fan Yulia Makhovich. For 35-year-old Almaty resident Alina Agapova, the event carries personal significance: “Backstreet Boys are my childhood and youth. Their songs always carried deep meaning and are tied to important memories. For me, this is not just a concert but a return to the times when we collected posters, magazines, and dreamed of seeing them live.” [caption id="attachment_36344" align="alignnone" width="300"] @Almaty Akimat[/caption] Many fans see the band’s visit as a milestone for Kazakhstan’s cultural scene. “Before, to attend concerts like this, you had to fly to Europe or the U.S. Now global stars are coming to us. It’s a matter of pride for our city,” said Aigerim, a university student who purchased her ticket in the first days of sales. Almaty is emerging as a regional hub for international music. After hosting stars like Jennifer Lopez and Marilyn Manson, the Backstreet Boys’ concert highlights the city’s drive to become Central Asia’s leading destination for major cultural events, with strong attention to safety and accessibility.