Can this veteran singer save Kurdish people's forgotten tunes?
Kurdish singer Mazhar Khaliqi says the Kurds should use globalization and technology to carry their musical tradition beyond the borders of the Middle East.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan — Age has not stopped Mazhar Khaliqi, the legendary Iranian Kurdish singer who heads the Sulaimaniyah-based Kurdish Heritage Institute, a nongovernmental institute for preserving Kurdish national heritage and music.
The 81-year-old folk singer, poet, composer and folklorist, hails from the city of Sanandaj, the capital of the western Iranian province of Kurdistan. But it was only last year, in July 2019, that he had been able to go back to his hometown to receive an honorary award from the Kurdish Elites Congress (KEC), organized by the University of Kurdistan. He had left Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because he could no longer sing under the ban on broadcast music.
