Posts by admin
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Ensemble Bezmara performing in Venice
20 November, 6pm, Sala degli Arazzi, Giorgio Cini Foundation, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice Ensemble Bezmârâ ‘Ajamlar: Persian composers at the Ottoman court between the 17th and 18th centuries Fikret Karakaya, conductor, çeng harpİhsan Özer, santūr zitherKemal Caba, rebab fiddleSerap Çağlayan, kanūn zitherFurkan Resuloğlu, kopuz luteAhmed Şahin, ney fluteBekir Şahin Baloğlu, lutes ‘ūd and şahrūdKamil Bilgin, daire frame drum
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New article by Polina Dessiatnitchenko
The Voice of Azerbaijan: Experiencing Recordings of Hajibaba Huseynov and post-Soviet Muslim Musical IdentitiesPolina Dessiatnitchenko’s article has been published in the Yale Journal of Music & Religion’s special issue titled “Sacred Recitation and Ritual in Digital Worlds.” Her article is focused on the Azerbaijani mugham singer Hajibaba Huseynov and how his legacy continues to create transnational communities, connecting Azerbaijanis astride the Aras River. The article is free to read and […]
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THE 2024 BLACKING LECTURE
will be given by Professor Rachel Harris, School of Arts, SOAS University of London 15 November 2024, 5.30-7pm GMT at Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS. To book an in person ticket please go to >> Border Listening: Ethnography and Performance Beyond Nation Drawing inspiration from research at the intersection of sound studies, ethnomusicology and anthropology, Rachel Harris considers how listening at the borders can inform our ethnographic and creative practice. In the lecture she will reflect […]
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SEM 2024 annual conference
Rachel Harris and Polina Dessiatnitchenko will be presenting their work as part of a panel titled “Maqam Creativity on the Borders: Musical Alternatives to the Nation-State” at the upcoming SEM 2024 annual conference held online! This panel, organized by Polina and chaired by Denise Gill (Stanford University), will also feature presentations by Banu Senay (Macquarie University) and Munir Gur (Stanford University). Different case studies from Central Asia, the Mediterranean, Anatolia, […]
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Wind of Saba: A Creative Collaboration
Ozan Baysal (bağlama) and Shohret Nur (dutar) Performance, Wind of Saba, August 13, 2024. Ozan Baysal has performed bağlama, including regional folk and Alevi traditions, since a young age. He studied institutional approaches to Turkish makam alongside jazz and classical music, and completed a PhD on bağlama şelpe (tapping) techniques at the Istanbul Technical University, MIAM. He was a visiting scholar at SOAS between 2021 and 2023. Shohret Nur was […]
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International Maqom Festival, June 26-28, 2024, Uzbekistan
Rachel Harris and Saeid Kordmafi attended Uzbekistan’s 2nd International Maqom Festival which was held in Zomin province, in the Jizzakh region of southeastern Uzbekistan. They presented papers at the Maqom Art Conference, organised by the Yunus Rajabi Institute as part of the festival, alongside colleagues from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, France and the US. Rachel Harris spoke on the historical, religious and musical connections between the maqām traditions of Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley, […]
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Nasim-e Tarab Ensemble will tour Europe and the UK in Autumn 2024
Nasim-e Tarab Ensemble, led by Saeid Kordmafi, will tour Europe and the UK in Autumn 2024. This will be the first of the border-crossing creative projects supported by Maqām Beyond Nation. The five-member Nasim-e Tarab Ensemble is part of a dynamic aesthetic movement in contemporary Middle Eastern classical music which challenges the rigid (and heavily political) boundaries between national traditions, in favour of a cross-cultural approach to the musics of […]
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Strand 1: Maqām across the Soviet-Chinese divide
Rachel Harris, Giovanni De Zorzi, Mukaddas Mijit This strand aims at “unbordering” Central Asian maqām repertoires across the former Soviet-Chinese divide. It focuses on repertoires canonised in the twentieth century as the separate Uzbek and Tajik Shashmaqām, and the Uyghur Twelve Muqam, and also less recognised regional maqām traditions from Khorezm, Ferghana and Turpan. Since the mid-twentieth century these repertoires have been extensively nationalised, and the overwhelming thrust of scholarship, […]
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Strand 2: Migrant memories, migrant creativities
Rachel Harris, Mukaddas Mijit, Aziz Isa Elkun This strand attends to human mobilities impelled by political violence and repression, the experience of migrants and the role of music-making in precarious lives; how music-making meets everyday needs for intimacy and belonging across borders, and the intersections of artistic and activist projects undertaken by migrants. Working with a transnational network of exile Uyghur Sufi devotees, we will document their cross-border histories, and […]
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Strand 3: Neo-Ottomanism and maqām revival
Giovanni De Zorzi This strand concerns the revival of Ottoman art music and Sufi-inspired forms of spirituality in contemporary Turkey. Under the Turkish Republic, Ottoman art music underwent a long period of neglect, Sufi lodges were closed, and their musical ceremonies prohibited. Since the 1980s, the revival of Ottoman culture has become a major transnational trend. In the sphere of music, the revival process has involved the rediscovery of repertoires […]