Homayoun Sakhi is widely regarded as the foremost living master of the rubab, the short-necked, plucked lute that is Afghanistan’s national instrument. Carved from a single block of mulberry wood with a goat-skin resonating head, it produces a warm, percussive tone.
Born in Kabul in 1976, Sakhi comes from one of Afghanistan’s leading musical families, a lineage tracing back to the 1860s, when the ruler of Kabul brought classically trained Indian musicians to his court. From age ten, he studied rubab with his father, Ustad Ghulam Sakhi, in the traditional ustâd-shâgird — master-apprentice — form of instruction; his father had studied under, and later became brother-in-law to, the legendary Ustad Mohammad Omar. In 1992, as civil war engulfed Afghanistan and music itself was banned, the family fled to Peshawar, Pakistan, where Sakhi hid his rubab beneath blankets on the journey out. In Peshawar’s refugee community, he quickly became a sought-after performer, appearing on radio and television alongside many of Pakistan’s best-known musicians.
In 2001, Sakhi settled in California, home to the largest Afghan community in the U.S., and today lives in Tracy. He is an internationally celebrated musician, composing for the Kronos Quartet and the Berlin Philharmonic and collaborating with artists including Yo-Yo Ma and the celebrated Afghan vocalist Ustad Farida Mahwash. He tours widely, carrying Afghan music to audiences abroad while holding it close for the diaspora community he calls home. In 2020, he founded the Rubab Academy to teach and preserve the tradition, and in 2024 he received an Apprenticeship Program grant and a Living Cultures Grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts to mentor new rubab players and document the tradition through recordings and scholarly transcription.
At the festival, Sakhi will be accompanied by Ravendeer Singh on tabla, traveling from Sacramento.