Mukash Abdraev was a Kyrgyz Soviet composer, born on May 5, 1920, in the village of Chon-Jar. Orphaned at an early age, he was adopted by his maternal uncle, Kyrgyz folk musician and singer Sharshen Termechikov. After moving with his family to Frunze in 1933, he studied violin with A. I. Konopko and later studied music theory with composer and conductor Pyotr Shubin.
Abdraev graduated from the Kyrgyz studio at the Moscow Conservatory in 1944, where he studied with G. I. Litinsky and then V. G. Fere. He continued his studies at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, graduating in 1950 from the composition class of S. N. Vasilenko.
From 1960, he taught as an associate professor in the music department of the Kyrgyz Women's Pedagogical Institute. In 1967, he became head of the theory and composition department at the Kyrgyz Institute of Arts; he was appointed professor in 1973. He also served as secretary and board member of the Union of Composers of the USSR and chaired the Union of Composers of the Kyrgyz SSR from 1967 until his death in 1979.
Abdraev wrote operas, cantatas, oratorios, orchestral works, theater music, and songs. His works include the operas Young Hearts (1953), Toktogul (1956, with A. Maldybaev), and Oljobai and Kishimjan (1965); the suite In the Tien Shan Mountains (1955); and the symphonic poems At Susamyr (1965) and Hymn to Labor (1971). He received the title People's Artist of the Kyrgyz SSR in 1974, the title Honored Artist of the Kyrgyz SSR in 1964, and the Toktogul Satylganov State Prize of the Kyrgyz SSR in 1974. A music school in Bishkek was renamed in his honor in 1980.