Musicking side by side in the MENA region
Musicking side by side in the MENA region
15. 08. 2024
Workshop and concert of hebrew and arabic songs by Zita Skořepová Honzlová and Badr Tachouche. 3. 9. 2024
HEBREW AND ARABIC SONGS: musicking side by side in the MENA region.
Workshop and concert by Zita Skořepová Honzlová and Badr Tachouche.
3. 9. 2024, 17:30. Musicological Library, Puškinovo náměstí 447/9, Praha 6.
Event organized in cooperation with the Musicological Library of the Institute of Art History CAS.
In the MENA region, communities of different religious backgrounds lived for centuries. Although the nature of their coexistence oscillated from peaceful cohabitation to mutual avoidance and conflict, it was always possible to find areas of creative and spiritual inspiration. Jewish Sephardic/Mizrahi prayers or paraliturgical hymns in Hebrew have their models in Arabic songs and their ethos is not dissimilar to Sufi spirituality. The present workshop and concert aims to provide insights into the ways Hebrew and Arabic elements intersect, referring to the legacy of the transformative period of Arabic music and poetry in Muslim-ruled Spain (al-Andalus) from the 9th century. Through a musico-poetic journey of songs with parallel Hebrew and Arabic texts, the presenters will demonstrate the significance of selected pieces of Hebrew-Jewish and Arabic-Sufi musical repertoire, which is conceptualized according to classical Arabic music theory and influenced by various forms of vernacular musics and musical practices in the MENA region. At the same time, the presentation will reveal the impact of innovative Andalusi genres known as Muwashshahāt and Azjāl, the role of Sufism and Sufi and Jewish masters/theologians and poets in the spread of these poetic forms, and their contribution in promoting values of peace and coexistence.
Zita Skořepová Honzlová, Ph.D. is the head of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Ethnochoreology at the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS, focusing on music of minorities, urban ethnomusicological research and folklore revivalism. Badr Tachouche, Ph.D. lectures at Anglo-American University in Prague, specializing in Islamic studies and interreligious dialogue in artistic expressions.
