Gulfam Ahmed

Ustad Gulfam Ahmed is a rabab and sarod player of the Senia gharana, representing the seventh generation of his family’s musical line. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of art, from Uttar Pradesh ^[1].

Learning at home

Gulfam Ahmed was born in Lucknow on 13 June 1956 ^[2]. He learned the rabab and sarod from his father and his elder brother, Ustad Mukhtar Ahmed, and gave his first public sarod performance at seven ^[2].

A classical rabab

The rabab is a stringed instrument of the folk music of Kashmir and Afghanistan ^[2]. Drawing on his classical training, Gulfam Ahmed changed its tuning by adding a string tuned to the madhyam note, so that every raga of classical music can be played easily on the instruments he builds ^[2]. In doing so he helped revive an instrument that had been known only in folk music, presenting classical rabab in India and abroad ^[2].

Teacher

For many years he taught classical rabab to young Afghans through the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and he now teaches young Indians, adding to the small number of classical rabab players in the country ^[2]. He has students in India, Australia, Canada and Afghanistan ^[2].

He has played at the Qutub Festival in Delhi, the Harivallabh festival in Punjab, the Saptak festival in Ahmedabad and the Sankat Mochan festival in Varanasi, and at festivals in England, Moscow, Japan and Kuwait ^[2]. ICCR has sent him to perform in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Ukraine and Iran ^[2]. He received the Uttar Pradesh government’s Yash Bharati award in 2016 ^[2].