Salar Nader, is one of the most sought-after young percussionists of his generation.  He was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1981 to Afghan parents forced to flee their home during the Russian-Afghan war.  Salar was just five-years-old when his family settled in the Bay Area.  At age seven, he began studying with the legendary tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain.  Salar already played tabla and was familiar with the basic rhythms of Afghan and Indian folk and pop music.  Now he began classical training, first concentrating on the spoken, rhythmic system of north Indian percussion, bols.  “It was like learning a new language,” he recalled.  “I spoke Farsi at home, English outside, Tabla bols at night with my lesson book.”  The boy showed such unusual talent that Hussain eventually became his guru, and today counts Salar as one of his most talented protégés ever.  

Salar began accompanying world-renowned classical musicians from South Asia during their visits to San Francisco.  He performed with master Pakistani vocalist Ustad Salamat Ali Khan, as well as his virtuoso sons Shafqat, Sharafat, and Sukhawat.  Zakir Hussein was so proud to have a student capable of backing such renowned vocalists that he took the unusual step of initiating Salar through the ghandavand ceremony.  In this ceremony, the teacher ties a red thread that has been ritually blessed around the student’s hand.  This act joins student and teacher for life, and normally comes only after many years of study.  Salar was just twelve at the time.  

From there, Salar began performing onstage with master musicians visiting from India, including sarangi virtuoso Ustad Sultan Khan.  Even as he made his way with the greats of Indian and Pakistani classical music, Salar kept up ties with his ancestral tradition, accompanying Afghan singers whose music is built around Farsi poetry and specialized musical ideas.  Salar’s parents worried that their son was moving into a professional career at such a tender age, and insisted that he donate his earnings to organizations aiding people in Afghanistan.  Salar participated in concerts connected with the annual Afghan/Iranian celebration, Nowroz.  This was how he first performed with great Afghan singers such as Farida Mawaash, Ahmad Wali to name a few.  Musicians were so amazed by the talent of this teenage boy that they never allowed him to remain in the background, but always insisted he be featured as a soloist during performances.  

When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan in the mid-90s, a number of important musicians went into exile.  Salar then began his long association with Homayun Sakhi, one of the great exponents of the 18-stringed rubab.  Sakhi is a traditionalist who deepened Salar’s understanding of the distinctive tunings, modes, pitch bends, and rhythms of Afghan folk music. 

After high school, Salar began attending the jazz program at Diablo Valley College in East Bay, and a new education began.  He joined a variety of jazz combos playing tabla, and watched as his guru Zakir Hussain pursued his own cross-genre projects with world-class jazz artists, and even Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.  These experiences gave Salar “a green light to experiment,” and he soon began developing new musical ideas with Dave Lewis, a trap drummer who's father also studied tabla with Hussain, and understood classical Indian rhythms.  Sometimes Salar would fill in for Hussain, and in this way he made the leap from campus combos to “playing with the big cats.”  To this day, Salar performs and records with Fareed Haque, an innovative jazz guitarist who has developed a unique audience for Indo-jazz fusion.

In 2004, Salar spent six weeks in Mumbai, deepening his study of classical tabla.  He performed solo in halls filled with top-notch tabla players.  This proved “an eye-opener,” showing him just how demanding a deeply informed audience could be.  These listeners were not impressed by style and showmanship, but rather content, knowledge of theory, and virtuoso execution.  “Those six weeks felt like five years,” he recalled.  But after that, his guru deemed him ready to begin teaching, and soon Salar had 50 students, including some of the most talented tabla players in the United States.  

Salar’s circle kept expanding from there.  He began to get calls to work with Iranian music masters, including vocalist Shahram Nazeri, and his son Hafez Nazeri.  He became the principle accompanist for Ahmad Wali, the most popular Afghan singer of Farsi ghazal’s from 1960 up to the present.  Ghulam Ali Khan, master vocalist from Lahore, Pakistan, called on Salar to be part of his 2008-9 North American tour, introducing him to the Urdu music community.  In 2005, Salar also began accompanying dance performances, in particular working with India’s Pandit Chitresh Das, founder of San Francisco’s Cchandam School of Dance, which has extensions around North America.  Salar also continues to do projects with new artists, the Kronos Quartet, Niyaz (Iran), Fareed Haque, Chebi Sabbah & 1002 Nights (electronica), and a first-time collaboration between Tajik, Uzbek and Afghan instrumentalist (Ustad Surajudin, Ustad Mukhtar & Homayun Sakhi).  

With so many of the world’s greatest musicians knocking on his door, Salar has to make difficult choices these days, all the more so because he now has projects of his own.   Through his father, who returns to Afghanistan often, Salar keeps in touch with an exciting world of musicians emerging there since the Taliban were overthrown.  It is his dream to visit Kabul for the first time and perform there.  Working with Homayun Sakhi, Salar is now creating his own Afghan music ensemble featuring percussion, dance, vocal and instrumental.  The group will debut in December, 2009, in Abu Dhabi.  

A few years back, the celebrated Afghan novelist Khaled Hosseini approached Salar to collaborate on a stage adaptation of his acclaimed novel, The Kite Runner.  The production was adapted by Mathew Spangler [San Jose State University] and directed by David Ira Goldstein.  Salar composed and performed the music score for an initial, two-month run in San Jose in 2007.  He then reworked the score, arranging and composing works entirely from the world of Afghan, Farsi folklore and ghazal.  This production debuted in 2008 at the San Jose Repertory Theatre in 2008 and in 2009 for Arizona Theaters productions in Tucson and Phoenix.  Due to the amazing success of the production and rave reviews the show will move on to other cities,  including Louisville., Kentucky and Cleveland Ohio one more amazing opportunity for this extraordinary young maestro to juggle.