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NYC Event: @metmuseum Musical Encounters from the Lands of the Mughals
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.
How the Jews Saved Islam
I was hoping that title would get someone’s attention. More specifically: I was reading The Hundred Thousand Fools of God: Musical Travels in Central Asia (And Queens, New York) and learned quite about the relationship between Bukharan Jews and Muslims in Transoxiana (modern day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). In brief, Muslims started giving up aspects of their musical heritage and the Bukharan (here, basically meaning Central Asian) Jews took up the craft and helped preserve Islamicate music, especially the shash maqām. It’s a good read, and I highly recommend it. While it’s also a bit late for Diaspora Month, the last…
He Who Burns
My dear friend is putting on a dance performance in NY this weekend. It is titled “He Who Burns,” and plays with the idea put forward by Hallaj that Iblis was cast out of Heaven for being the truest lover of God. He refuse to bow to Adam not because he was disobedient, but because none is worthy of worship other than God. Check it out. He Who Burns