Tara Jaff

Kurdish singers: Aynur , Mehmet Atli and Tara Jaff in Istanbul, 2011

Tara Jaff (* 1958 in Baghdad , Iraq ) is a Kurdish harpist and singer. She mainly sings in hawrami .

biography

Tara Jaff was born in 1958 in Baghdad as the daughter of a Kurdish diplomat from Halabja and a Tartar Turkish woman . When she was 11, she attended a music school there and learned to play the piano. In middle school she taught herself to play the guitar and found her interest in Western music at an early age . In 1971 her father was arrested with the upswing of the Ba'ath regime in Iraq. Membership of all students in the Ba'ath Party became compulsory; Tara and her sister refused, which is why Tara was forced to flee Iraq to Great Britain in 1976 .

In England she met the guitarist Ralph McTell , which is why she began to experiment with English folk music . Only after a few years of exile did she feel the need to play Kurdish rhythms, tones and songs, which she still knew from her relatives in Iraq, on the guitar and began to combine Kurdish music with Western music.

During her university days in England, she also got to know Kurds from Turkey and Iran , which brought her closer to Kurdish music. Eventually she also learned to play the oriental instrument saz . She later joined a Chilean band and sang memorized Spanish songs there, even though she didn't speak a word of Spanish.

When Tara Jaff first heard Alan Stivell's record called Renaissance of the Celtic Harp , she fell in love with the harp and decided to learn to play the harp. The fact that the harp (originally an instrument of the Sumerians and Assyrians ) comes from the Middle East strengthened Tara's bond with the harp. She later began taking harp lessons. Today she earns her living as a musician and is the most successful Kurdish harp player.

Discography

• Dilley Dewanem (2006)

Singles

• Dilley Dewanem (2006)

swell

1. ↑ bbc.co.uk: Portrait of Tara Jaff , accessed on November 29, 2007

Web links

Official homepage of Tara Jaff