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. 

 

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