By Rachel Harris
I first encountered the glorious voice of Abliz Shakir in 2001 when I was staying in the student dormitory of Xinjiang University. There was a Uyghur postgraduate student down the corridor who played his recordings every morning at top volume. I learned the singer’s name and ran out to the bazaar to buy every one of his cassettes I could find. Thus, my love affair with Uyghur muqam was born. I listened endlessly to Abliz Shakir’s recordings of Rak, Chebiyat, Nawa and Mushawrek muqam; the Ili variant with the muqaddima and dastan, recorded with the other greats of Ghulja music scene: Musajan Rozi, Saydulla Tohti, and Nurmemet Tursun. Listening to Abliz Shakir’s huge resonant voice filled me with spirit and joy, and it still does today.
I and my husband were lucky enough to interview him in 2006, and he told us the story of his harsh experiences during the 1960s. Born and raised in Ghulja, he began singing when he was 8 years old. He was sent to Ürümchi in 1959 to join the newly established Radio Ensemble, but in 1962 his wife left for Kazakhstan taking their young child with her, two of the 60,000 people who crossed the border that year hoping for a new life in the Soviet Union. He was stopped from following them by his work unit and was labelled a counter revolutionary and condemned to reform through labour.
He worked in the agricultural production arm of the Radio for ten years, tending horses and cows, and driving a cart. A friend of his, a radio technician, used to open the window and play recordings of muqam for him to listen to, and he learned to sing several muqam by hovering outside the window, “like a thief” he said.
He was rehabilitated in 1972 and became deeply involved with the work of collecting and organising the Uyghur Twelve Muqam repertoire. He discovered new sections of the muqam (abucheshme and mustahzat), and a new cycle called Ishret Engiz, and he was clearly proud of the respect he finally achieved as a researcher.
But he was most widely loved and admired as a performer. Abliz Shakir was a denizen of the Ghulja olturush gatherings of the 1980s, a fine performer on the tambur and dutar, and a wonderful singer of the Ili folk song suites. But my favourites are still those classic cassette recordings of the Ili variant of the muqam, some of them quite distinct from the now established professional canon. I especially love his version of Mushawrek, which really conveys that heroic spirit contained in his voice, even as he sings the bleakest of lyrics. He was one of the greats.
Ghemdin qutulmighan mihnetlik bashim
Kunde yuz-ming hijranler boldi neyleyin
Qarari yoq shum pelekning gerdishi
Tugumes sewda’ge saldi neyleyin
My suffering is unbearable
Every day a thousand partings
No escaping this harsh fate
And endless longing
Mushawrek 2nd dastan
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