Abstract
The article analyses, from the standpoint of comparative culturology, the regional performing schools historically formed within Uzbek classical musical culture: the Bukhara-Samarkand, Khorezm, Fergana-Tashkent and Kashkadarya-Surkhandarya schools. The author identifies the scholarly criteria of the concept of a performing school repertoire composition, performance technique, the set of accompanying instruments, the master-apprentice chain and features of the local dialect and on this basis provides a comparative description of the four schools. The genetic and historical connection between the schools is substantiated as a variant-invariant relationship. The study demonstrates that a performing school is not only an artistic and stylistic phenomenon but also a profoundly social and institutional one, functioning as a professional community and a bearer of regional identity.