Posts by admin
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Giovanni De Zorzi: Istanbul fieldwork 2024-25
From May to July 2024, and subsequently from April to June 2025, I conducted fieldwork in Istanbul, focusing on the current state of Ottoman-Turkish art music (makam). Given our project’s ‘beyond nation’ scope, I proposed that the concert scheduled for November 20, 2024, in Venice should feature compositions by ‘foreign’ composers—referred to as acemler, acemī, or acemīyūn, and generally regarded as ‘Persians’—found in 17th and 18th-century treatises by Bobowski, Cantemir, and Kevserī. Consequently, […]
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Masterclass with Ilyos Arabov
On 14 January 2025, SOAS Department of Music hosted Honoured Artist of Uzbekistan, Ilyos Arabov, to discuss and demonstrate his art. An outstanding singer, instrumentalist, and maqām master from Uzbekistan, Arabov has performed internationally and won prestigious prizes at festivals worldwide. He is recognised as one of the leading performers of Central Asian Shashmaqom and heads the instrumental performance department at the Yunus Rajabi Institute in Tashkent. In a wide-ranging […]
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Neva Mugham in post-Soviet Azerbaijan
The many meanings of Neva Mugham in post-Soviet Azerbaijan by Polina Dessiatnitchenko: Azerbaijani_Nava.pdf
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Geopoetics
Geopoetics is a collaborative audiovisual experiment led by Mukaddas Mijit, featuring six Uyghur diaspora artists. Rooted in themes of displacement and the fragmented relationship to place, the project deconstructs conventional notions of geography and belonging. Through loosely defined instructions (score), the artists responded with a mosaic of soundscapes and visual narratives, exploring the emotional and physical landscapes of their current surroundings. Visit the Geopoetics website: Website link: Link: https://www.neroeditions.com/geopoetics The making […]
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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, […]