Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum

Location: Room G52 (Main Building) SOAS, University of London

In conjunction with the Institute of Musical Research.

All welcome and admission is free but advance registration is requested for planning purposes.

Click here to download a copy of the abstracts (pdf)

Current Research in the Musics of the Middle East and Central Asia

Provisional Schedule 

9.30 Welcome

9.40 - 11.00   Session 1, Chair: Rachel Harris

9.40 - 10.20     Sara Manasseh (Independent). Call and Response: Iraqi Jewish Musical Responses to the British Raj in Twentieth Century Bombay

10.20 - 11.00   Dafna Dori (Uppsala University). Songs Composed by Saleh al-Kuwaity: Innovations in Iraqi Music 1930-1950

11.00-11.30 break   (refreshments in room 116)

11.30-12.50  Session 2, Chair: Peter McMurray

11.30 - 12.10   Saeid Kordmafi (SOAS, University of London). Īqā‘: a Canon to Respect or Break? Rhythm-making strategies in composition and improvisation in the classical music of the Arab Mashriq

12.10 - 12.50   Owen Wright (SOAS, University of London). Metrical Intermezzo: Text-setting in the Ottoman vocal repertoire

1.00 - 2.30 Lunch

2.30 - 4.00   Session 3, Chair: Laudan Nooshin

2.30 - 3.10       Zeynep Abbasoglu (Koç University, Istanbul). Music Production in the 14^th – 15^th Century Jalayirid and Timurid Courts: The Life and Legacy of Abd al-Qadir Maraghi

3.10 - 3.50       Rachel Beckles Willson (Royal Holloway, University of London). Extending a tradition and the challenge of ‘becoming minoritarian’

4.00-5.00pm Music from Niknaz Mirghalami

The Middle East and Central Asia Music forum has been running since 2007 and is open to researchers, students and anyone interested in the music and culture of the region. In the spirit of fostering dialogue and interdisciplinarity, we hope that the issues discussed at the forum will be of interest to a broad audience, including musicologists, ethnomusicologists and other researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. In addition, we welcome those working on other aspects of Middle Eastern and Central Asian culture broadly speaking (dance, visual arts, media, film, literature, etc.)

The Forum is convened by Dr Laudan Nooshin, City, University of London, ([email protected]), and Dr Rachel Harris, SOAS, University of London, ([email protected]).