Ezmarai Aref (Pictured Left) (Mohammed Musa) was born to a musical family in 1964 in Kabul. He was reared in the intensely musical quarter of Kharabat—long home to Afghanistan’s greatest urban musicians. Aref’s uncle and grandfather were professional musicians, and his father was an instrument builder who constructed rubâb (double chambered lute), tabla, tambur (long-necked lute), and other typical Afghan instruments. Aref began playing tabla at age 12, but had to take a long break to serve in the Afghan military. At 21, he returned to music, the calling of his life ever since.
Aref studied first with Chacha Azim, then Ustad Arif, both respected music masters in Kharabat during the years of the Russian occupation. A natural talent, Aref soon began performing at weddings and other parties and on the radio, accompanying a variety of singers. He worked with two of the most famous Pashtun singers, Mangal and Naghma, a beloved husband-and-wife team. Among Aref’s neighbors in Kharabat were Homayoun and Pervez Sakhi, sons of Ustad Ghulam Sakhi, and future collaborators on many projects.
After 1989, when the mujahedin took control of Afghanistan, life became very difficult for musicians there. Like most of the other members of Voices of Afghanistan, Aref fled to Peshawar, a Pakistani city near the border with Afghanistan. He recalls a challenging life there, as rising mujahedin activity curtailed the careers of many musicians. Aref was unable to play for an entire year at one point. Just the same, he persisted. In Peshawar during these years, he worked with rubâb virtuoso Homayoun Sakhi, further deepening their friendship and musical bond.
In 1996, Aref made his first visit to the United States on a tour with Mangal and Naghma. By the time he returned to Pakistan, the Taliban were gaining the upper hand in Peshawar, and musical life was even further restricted. The next time Aref got to travel to the US, in 2000, he decided to stay and begin a new chapter of his musical life, among the Afghan people of the San Francisco Bay Area. In the coming years, Aref would perform with a variety of exiled Afghan singers, including Haider Salim, Salma Jahani, Khalil Ragheb, Ustad Amir Mohammed, Amani Jana, Qasim Bakh, and, the “voice of Afghanistan,” Ustad Farida Mahwash.
In 2012, Aref joined forces with Homayoun Sakhi and Ustad Farida Mahwash in Voices of Afghanistan, a group dedicated to introducing American audiences to the amazing music of their homeland. “I am happy in this group,” says Aref, “happy to be conveying messages of peace and unity of Afghanistan, and all people.”
