Mustafa Stefan Dill is a local musical artist who has been living in Taos for over a year and a half but is a New Mexico Native. Mustafa grew up in a multicultural family that listened to mariachi, flamenco, jazz, and classic rock. Mustafa describes music as being what started him. Baby Mustafa was always reaching for music even before he could read it and the words. He also shared stories of how he would reach up for the piano keys, barely being tall enough to press the keys. Mustafa can recall always being intrigued by sound.
Mustafa's First Gig
Mustafa remembers his first professional performance as a musician at around 12 years old.
It was while he was living in Las Cruces. Mustafa remembers that his dad had to drive him to the dive bar because he was only 12. Mustafa recalls wanting to play like Carlos Santana because that is what everybody wanted at the time. From there, music just expanded for Mustafa.
Musical Education
Mustafa holds a Master's Degree in music composition from New England Conservator. Mustafa decided to study composition rather than jazz performance because he was not interested in playing lots of solos over jazz standards. He was always interested in his own music. Mustafa stated that composition really teaches you how to hone your voice and how to craft an improvisation and how to do so much with very little.
Past And Current Projects
Mustafa has led a bunch of various projects. One called Love Unfold The Sun, which is a jazz group based out of Santa Fe, and before that had a progressive rock mash-up out of Albuquerque called Pray For Brain. Right now, Mustafa is doing a number of various solo projects and various iterations and formations in terms of instrumentation and with other band members.
What's Next
Even though COIVD has had a huge impact on what Mustafa has been doing musically, he still finds ways to tap into his art. He finds himself taking this time to go through the backlog of his music catalogs. "I have stuff that I recorded almost ten years ago that has never seen the light of day. There is also a soundtrack to an independent film that I did in India that I am going to put out. There are two CDs with other musicians that I met and recorded with while I was touring in Europe in the 90s. They have been in the vaults. I have a lot of unreleased material," Mustafa shared. Mustafa is also in the process now of writing new material. Mustafa explains that music is very important to him because he believes that when you have an ability, when you have a talent, you have a duty to pay it forward and share it with the world.
