MAQĀM BEYOND NATION is designed in the form of six interlinked research strands based in different contact zones across the maqām world.
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, training and performance serves to harden the borders between them. And yet, histories reveal a dynamic and fluid regional musical culture, linked to the movement of elite musicians between courts and the dissemination of Sufi practices in which the maqām traditions are embedded.
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 the memories of religious and maqām-based musical practice which they preserve. We will explore changing attitudes to national canons among young Uyghur migrants and engage with projects to re-interpret maqām in the context of new creative projects incorporating electronic music, dance and spoken word.
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 and instruments, while revivalist ensembles have produced landmark performances and recordings of early Ottoman music repertoires, and musicians rooted the Mevlevi tradition have performed and taught this repertoire internationally. We explore the ways in which state patronage of Sufi practice and Ottoman arts has affected their subtle aesthetic, and the ways in which the revival has challenged the geographical boundaries of modern Turkey.
Strand 4: Pre-national links across Iran and the Caucasus
Polina Dessiatnitchenko, Saeid Kordmafi
This strand comprises a comparative study of maqām-based dastghī repertoires which were spread over Iran and Caucasus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, we explore shared networks of exchange and patronage among Iranian and Azerbaijani musicians, the presence of Iranian religious singers (ta‘ziyya khâns) in urban centres in Azerbaijan, and the majlis gatherings which hosted Iranian musicians and nurtured these repertoires.
Strand 5: Post-Soviet Muslim transnational musical subjectivities
Polina Dessiatnitchenko
This strand focuses on how mugham is part of the current increasing ties between Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and other regions in the Muslim world, and the emergence of post-Soviet Muslim transnational musical subjectivities. Significant aspects of the revival in Azerbaijan include the reintroduction of neutral tones, efforts to rediscover lost repertoire, new discourses around Divine love (ishq); emphasis on the prosodic meters (‘arūḍ) and spiritual meanings of the ghazal poetry to which mugham are sung. We explore contemporary efforts to restore mugham repertoire believed to have been lost in the Soviet era by looking across the borders, especially to Iran, to (re)create these musical forms and incorporate them into the contemporary canon.
Strand 6: New Creativities in Iranian Classical Music
Saeid Kordmafi
This strand explores the potentials for incorporating into contemporary Iranian classical music performance musical materials, techniques and structures drawn from three neighbouring music cultures: Arab, Tajik and Azerbaijani classical traditions. One of the key issues of concern to Iranian musicians over the last few decades has been a perception of the stagnancy of creativity in contemporary Iranian classical music. One response has come from a group of revivalist musicians in Iran who have attempted to recharge the creative potentials of Iranian classical music by drawing on historical sources and neighbouring maqāmtraditions. We will map out productive creative strategies by engaging Iranian classical music (āvāz) with the melodic and metric structures, and performative tactics of Arab, Central Asian and Azerbaijani traditions.
Tags: Arab, Azerbaijan, Caucasus, Central Asia maqam, Ferghana, Iranian, Khorezm, Maqām Beyond Nation, Mevlevi, Music, Ottaman, Project Strands, Shashmaqām, Soviet-Chinese, Tajik, Turkey, Uyghur, Uyghur Twelve Muqam, Uzbek