Salman Shukur was born in 1921 in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesipho ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, where he died in 2007. He studied oud under Sherif Muheddin Haydar at the

Baghdad Conservatory The Baghdad Conservatory is a music conservatory in Baghdad, Iraq . Hanna Petros founded the institution in 1936. The conservatory has produced such famous oud players as Munir Bashir and Jamil Bashir, Salman Shukur and Ghanim Haddad. The maqam ...

. Later, he became Professor of oud and the head of the Oriental Music Department at the Institute founded by Sharif Muheddin, and held that post for 30 years. He was also Artistic Advisor for the Iraqi Ministry of Information. He performed frequently for Iraqi radio and television, and performed in concert in China, Iran, Egypt, Germany, England, and the United States. He has performed publicly as recently as 1997. He made only one full-length recording, for

Decca Headline Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in ...

, "Salman Shukur - oud", HEAD 16 PSI, recorded in

Rosslyn Hill Chapel The Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel is a place of worship in Hampstead, London. It is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the umbrella organisation for British Unitarians. It is also a Grade II Listed buildin ...

in London in 1976 by

James Mallinson James Mallinson (1943 – 24 August 2018) was a British record producer. He was the first winner of the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical category, and won a total of 16 Grammy Awards in his career. He won his first three Grammy a ...

and Stanley Gooddall, notes by John Haywood, released in 1977, and a brief excerpt of his solo oud performance in Rast Iraq can be heard on the Tangent Record series Music In The World Of Islam: Lutes (re-issued by Topic Records). For this recording, Salman Shukur used an oud built by the son of Ustad Ali
Mohammad Ali
It features six courses, and the lowest-pitched single string is in the lowest physical place when the oud is played so the string order is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1. Like

Jamil Bashir Jamil Bachir or Bashir ( ar, جميل بشير; b. Mosul, Iraq, 1920; d. London, September 24, 1977) was an Iraqi musician and expert oud player. The Iraqi Music Institute was opened in 1936, under administration of Hanna Petros (1896–1958), the ...

he tuned the instrument very high - from G to G - instead of the traditional C to C. It has a traditional glued-to-the-face bridge, to which the strings are tied. Like many students of Sherif Muheddin Haydar, Salman Shukur uses a plectrum some of the time, and all four fingers of his right hand some of the time, when playing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shukur, Salman 1921 births 2007 deaths Iraqi musicians Iraqi oud players Musicians from Baghdad