Kazakh music is the traditional and modern musical culture of the Kazakh people of the Eurasian steppe.
It is rooted in a nomadic, oral tradition centered on the solo instrumental art of the küy (programmatic pieces) for the two‑string dombyra and the bowed qyl‑kobyz, as well as epic singing (zhyr/zhyrau) and improvised song duels (aytys) by akyn poet‑singers.
Characteristic features include pentatonic and modal scales, flexible rhythm that follows speech contours in vocal genres, rich ornamentation, heterophonic textures, and programmatic storytelling that evokes landscapes, animals, history, and heroic figures.
Since the 20th century, Kazakh music has expanded to include conservatory composition, choral and orchestral arrangements of folk melodies, and contemporary fusions that bring traditional timbres into pop, rock, and global “world fusion” contexts.
The core of Kazakh music formed alongside the ethnogenesis of the Kazakh people and the rise of the Kazakh Khanate in the 15th century. As nomadic pastoralists, Kazakhs cultivated a portable, oral musical culture: solo instrumental küy on the dombyra and qyl‑kobyz, epic recitation (zhyr) by zhyrau bards, and improvised poetic song (aytys) by akyns. These practices drew on older Turkic‑Mongolic steppe aesthetics, shamanic and Sufi spiritual layers, and neighboring Central Asian modal concepts.
Two emblematic instruments organize the tradition. The dombyra—a two‑string, long‑necked lute—carries the virtuosic küy repertoire, whose pieces are often programmatic and titled after events, places, animals, or heroes. The qyl‑kobyz—a two‑string bowed fiddle associated with the legendary Korkyt Ata—has a timbre suited to trance, epic, and ritual contexts. Other instruments include the end‑blown sybyzgy flute, the zither‑like zhetygen, the plucked sherter, and the drum dauylpaz. Vocal genres range from epic zhyr and moralizing terme/tolgau to lyrical folk songs.
In the 19th century, composer‑performers such as Kurmangazy Sagyrbayuly and Dina Nurpeisova codified and expanded the instrumental canon. During the Soviet era, folk music was institutionalized through conservatories, orchestras of traditional instruments, and choral/operatic settings. Composers like Akhmet Zhubanov and Nurgisa Tlendiyev arranged folk melodies and wrote concert works, while singers such as Amre Kashaubayev presented Kazakh repertoire on international stages. This period preserved large parts of the tradition while reframing them for staged performance and education.
After 1991, Kazakhstan saw a revival of heritage practices (aytys competitions, epic singing, instrument making) alongside new fusions: ethno‑rock, folk‑jazz, and pop integrating dombyra and qyl‑kobyz timbres. Ensembles and soloists brought küy and zhyr into global circuits, and digital media amplified both archival recovery and experimentation. Today, Kazakh music spans living village traditions, conservatory virtuosity, and cosmopolitan hybrids that retain the narrative spirit and modal color of the steppe.
