Ashraf Sharif Khan is the third son of the Asian sitar master Ustad Muhammad Sharif Khan Poonchwala. An acknowledged prodigy since the age of eleven, he inherits a musical tradition handed down from father to son, from ustad to talib, over hundreds of years -- since the founding of the "saini gharana" school in the time of the Moghul Emperors of South Asia.
Ashraf's music combines an astounding technical proficiency with an accomplished artist's striving for perfection in musical expression. The melodic beauty of his style, accentuated by his dynamic rhythmic development and virtuoso technique provide an unforgettable musical experience for longtime aficionados of South Asian music and for newcomers alike. His music transcends regional boundaries, and is accessible to all. It is universal in scope.
Ashraf says, "I believe music is the perfect expression of feeling. In South Asian music, each musical mode, or "raag", embodies a particular mood, a time of day, a season of the year. With each performance, my goal is to use the music and my instrument to capture the feeling which is in my heart and give it to the audience, so that they too can feel what I am feeling. When I am successful in this, the music seems to have a life of its own, and I am moved by it, just as I hope the listeners are."
After his first performance at the age of ten in Lahore, Pakistan (1979), Ashraf has toured extensively in Pakistan. In 1990 he received the Khwaja-Khurshid-Anwar Award and the Hazrat-Amir-Khusro Award for musical excellence. In 1992 he was chosen by the United States Information Agency to represent Pakistan at the International Sound Celebration Festival in Louisville, Kentucky (USA). In 1997 he received the Colombo University Kelaniya Award (Sri Lanka) for musical excellence. During that time Ashraf has given numerous performances in the major cities of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Europe and the United States. In 1999 he performed at the prestigious Medina Festival of Tunis inTunisia, at Okinawa's "Sugar Hall" in Japan, at "Symphony Space" at the Manhattan Broadway in New York, and at the "Cairo Opera" in Egypt. In the same year he married a German woman and moved near Hamburg in Northern Germany. In the following years he has given concerts mostly in several cities over Europe and met many international musicians. With some of them he has created new interesting projects in the jazz and world music field, giving a wider range and new flavour to his outstanding musicality. Nevertheless he has been staying loyal to his classical tradition and gives priority to his solo-performances.
