Music, #Iran, and the #IranElection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Musical Encounters from the Lands of the Mughals. This program features new music developed from an artistic collaboration supported by the Aga Khan Music Initiative. Inspired by visual images and literary descriptions of exuberant music-making in the Mughal courts, the Music Initiative brings together musicians from Afghanistan, India, and Tajikistan with the aim of merging their talents, traditions, and musical instruments to create new sounds.

Unbelievable history.  Two Turkish Muslims work for a Jewish man and bridge America’s racial divide through music. All That Jazz (at the Turkish Embassy) | Talking Points Memo. “As teenagers, both Ertegun boys had a passion for jazz music and became friends with many of the city’s musicians,” Ambassador Tan said. “In fact, just around the corner [from the Howard Theatre], Ahmet and his brother worked at a store, ‘Waxi Maxi’ with Max Silverman, the owner. It was out of this store that Ahmet began selling albums from his collection of thousands of jazz and blues records. When they closed…

Letter from America – Givin’ It to the Man, Islamic Style – NYTimes.com. No doubt for many — probably most — Americans, Islam is associated these days at the very least with ultraconservative social mores — the lesser status of women, for example — not to mention the practices of the radical extreme — the cult of death, suicide bombings, acid thrown in the faces of girls going to school. So how about Muslims who embrace feminism, play in punk rock bands, and castigate orthodox, official Saudi Arabian-supported Islam as “Islamofascism?” Yes, it starts with some clichés, but we will…