(b Keles, Uzbekistan, 1922). Uzbek musician. He was a musical autodidact from an early age, teaching himself to play the dutār, the tanbūr and, later, the sato, or bowed tanbūr, and the violin. In 1942, after being wounded in World War II, he joined the music ensemble of the Muqimi Theatre of Musical Drama in Tashkent. In 1948 he moved to the Uzbek radio station, where he worked until 1952, when all the traditional music ensembles at the radio were disbanded and replaced by note-reading orchestras. From 1952 to 1957 Alimatov worked as a freelance musician, performing mostly at weddings. In 1957 he became a founding member of the Makom Ensemble of Uzbekistan Radio under the direction of Yunus Rajabi, and performed in this ensemble until 1982. In addition to his work in the Makom Ensemble, Alimatov made his own recordings of traditional and classical music. However, because his performances did not conform to official stylistic canons, his recordings were banned from the radio from 1960 to 1975. In the late 1970s, after a change of leadership at the radio station, the Soviet Melodiya company released two volumes of his solo recordings. In 1995 he made his European début in a solo concert at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. In the same year, Ocora/Radio France released his first solo CD recording. Alimatov is known as a musical innovator who creates elegantly austere versions of traditional melodies in a style that has been termed neo-classical. While his innovations once earned scepticism from older musicians, his performance versions have become classics in themselves for an entire generation of younger performers.
and other resources
Sato Nawalari, perf. T. Alimatov, Melodiya M30 35919 22 (1977)
Uzbek Kuilari, perf. A. and T. Alimatov, Melodiya C30 07365–6 (1977)
Ouzbekistan: Turgun Alimatov, Ocora C560086 (1995)
T. Levin: The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (and Queens, New York) (Bloomington, IN, 1996) [incl. CD]
THEODORE LEVIN