How did the story begin?

He did not know, while he was fearfully walking as a child towards the examination room at the School of Music and Ballet in Baghdad in 1977 that the examination committee who was waiting for him there would draw the entire life paths and without knowing it, would possibly contribute to efforts for reviving the Iraqi music that, after a few decades, would need people of the civilization who took upon themselves the commission of introducing it to the generations as part of the language of Iraq and its voice that the world should hear. Music for Azhar became a definition of an ancient civilization creeping into it the randomness, demagoguery, and the new with its negative side to cover beauty of the past, its originality and sweetness.
The committee, consisting of music experts from Iraq and Russia, chose the santur instrument to accompany the educational process of such anxious child, and it was larger than him, so that both began the learning journey together until the boy grew up and became well versed in dealing with and playing on it. To begin a journey of life and an eternal bond between the child and his instrument.

The Early Years
Azhar began a journey of music, its life, memories and origin at the school of music and ballet, which is a nucleus from which the Iraqi prominent musicians were graduated. They were taught by the most skilled music professors who were brought from Russia and Hungary to teach the musical theories in order to establish a music generation based on a firm and strong academic foundations alongside the most prominent Iraqi music professors to form together, a true musical base which establishes for inauguration of generations with beauty, sophistication, morals and urbanization, and this is the eternal face of Mesopotamia.What happened after the music and ballet?

Another more spacious and professional life was waiting for Azhar Kubba after graduating from the school to join the Institute of Tonal Studies, which was later called the Institute for Musical Studies (1987-1993). Music giants were undertaking commission of establishing different types of music by professionally training students, among them the professors/ Munir Bashir, Rouhi Khamash, Hussein Al Azami and Wissam Ayoub.

Being among the top ten students at the Institute of Musical Studies, Azhar moved to the university studies through his enrollment in College of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad, so he chose this time to study piano in order to comprise the East and West music from 1993 to 1997.

 Notable Stations

• Establishment of Fan Music band in Baghdad, 1994 was the first experience of comprising the eastern molds with the western instruments such as guitar and piano
• The Santur accompanies the orchestra in the first experience of its kind in Iraq and the Middle East by playing with the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra led by Maestro/ Muhammad Amin Ezzat and composed by artist/ Abdullah Jamal in 1994
• To establish an Iraqi Takaseem Ensemble for the Jalghi Al Baghdadi in the UAE, 2011 to revive the Iraqi musical heritage and introduce the different communities and societies to Iraqi folk music.

Career Journey

Director of the Artistic Heritage Department at the Sharjah Heritage Institute

Collecting and documenting the UAE folklore in audio versions to protect them from disappearing, in addition to projects for reviving the Gulf heritage and peoples’ arts.

• Artistic and organizational supervision of the annual festival “Sharjah Heritage Days” in 2006 – until now
• General Coordinator of the Sharjah Folklore Festival for the Islamic Countries in 2014
• Bringing in the local and international popular and folkloric bands
• Supervision of the annual opening ceremony of the “International Narrator Forum” in Sharjah annually.
• Supervision of the opening ceremony of the Annual Heritage Crafts Forum in Sharjah

 Lectures and Researches

• The Popular Music and Belief
• Models of the Iraqi Singing
• Effect of music on the human mind