The artist
Born in Khiva in 1977 in a family of musicians, since her early age Gozal Muminova was dedicated herself to the Uzbeki tradition by playing dutor and rabab. In the Superior Academy of Tashkent, she was the cherished disciple of the famous Masters, Abdurrahim Hamidov and Turgun Alimatov. She obtained a prize for dutor playing at the competition of maqom in 1999, and since then became one of the greatest performers on the instrument and among the rare artists representing the style of Fakhruddin Sadiqov and other past Masters. Her style adapts as well to the school of Ferghana-Tashkent as that of Khorezm which uses more tremolos.
She teaches at the Academy of Tashkent and has given many concerts in Europe, Central Asia, China and Iran. With Leyli Ensemble, she introduced successfully dutor into the Persian traditional repertoire, particularly in the rhythmic pieces where this instrument harmoniously joins setar and gives to the ensemble a cordial sound.

The repertoire
The pieces were selected to show the richness of the playing style of dutor in serious genres (Tasnif, Nalesh), as well as in vocal (Mogholcha), light (dutorim, Gilas), and virtuosity genres (Qoshtari, Rahat). They cover the schools of Khorezm, Bukhara and Ferghana. As for the Iranian setar, there are several categories of tone color according to the size of the instrument and thickness of the strings. Gozal Muminova plays here on several dutors and chooses her instrument according to the pieces which lend themselves to it best. ...