Aga Khan Music Initiative
in Central Asia
Music
of Central Asia at the Louvre, 5,6,13 April 2008
Musicians from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan supported
by the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia will be
performing at the Louvre Auditorium on the 5, 6 and 13th
of April.Spiritual music from Azerbaijan will be performed
by the world-renowned Alim and Fargana Qasimov
on Saturday, 5 April 2008 at 2030, in the Louvre’s
Auditorium. Music rooted in the nomadic traditions of the
Tien Shan (“Celestial Mountains”) of the Kyrgyz
Republic will be performed by Tengir-Too
on Sunday, 6 April 2008 at 1730, in the Auditorium. Dushanbe-based
Academy of Maqâm will perform traditional
instrumental pieces, lyrical songs and contemplative poetry
that are bound together in a vast, yet integrated artistic
conception of great refinement and beauty. They will perform
on Sunday, 13 April at 1700, also in the Auditorium. For
more information, please see the press
release.
Des
musiciens d’Azerbaïdjan, du Kirghizistan et du
Tadjikistan, soutenus par l’Initiative Aga Khan pour
la musique en Asie centrale, vont se produire à l’Auditorium
du Louvre les 5, 6 et 13 avril. De
renommée mondiale, Alim et Fargana Qasimov interpréteront
de la musique spirituelle d’Azerbaïdjan, samedi
5 avril 2008 à 20h30. Tengir-Too présentera
des oeuvres ancrées dans les traditions nomades du
Tien Shan (les « montagnes célestes »
de la République kirghize) dimanche 6 avril 2008
à 17h30. L’Académie de Maqâm de
Douchanbé proposera des œuvres instrumentales
traditionnelles, des chants et des poèmes contemplatifs
qui s’intègrent dans une seule et même
tradition artistique, vaste, subtile et de grande beauté.
Ses musiciens se produiront le dimanche 13 avril à
17h, toujours à l’Auditorium. Pour plus de
détails, consulter le communiqué
de presse.
2007
North American Tour: Seventeen musicians
from Central Asia are going on tour in 11 North
American cities from October 12, 2007
to November 9, 2007. The tour, “Spiritual
Sounds of Central Asia: Nomads, Mystics, and Troubadours,”
will provide North American audiences with a rare
opportunity to hear music from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Qaraqalpakstan (an
autonomous region in Uzbekistan). The artists,
several of whom are making their North American
debuts, will include the legendary Azerbaijani
vocalist Alim Qasimov, whom the French newspaper
Le Monde hailed as “one of the most beautiful
voices of our era,” and his daughter Fargana;
Bardic Divas, four women from Kazakhstan and Qaraqalpakstan
who demonstrate the power and beauty of the female
voice; and the Badakhshan Ensemble, which performs
trance-inducing mystical songs from the majestic
Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and Afghanistan,
an area known in Persian as bam-i dunya, “the
roof of the world.” For more information,
please see 2007 North American tour
press release and tour
itinerary.
Tengir-Too
Perform at the Rainforest Festival in Borneo: Tengir-Too
performed at the Rainforest World Music Festival from
7th to 9th July 2006, in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo,
Malaysia. In its 9th year, the festival brings together
performers from around the world. Apart from Kyrgyzstan,
there will also be bands from Austria, Mali, Korea,
Turkey, Canada, Mongolia, Latin America, Malaysia, Madagascar
and France. The venue for this year will be the Sarawak
Cultural Village, situated about 45 minutes outside
of Kuching city. For more information, please see the
Festival
site.
2006
Tour of the United States: The March 2006
USA tour of Via Kabul: Central Asia Without Borders
– presented and curated by the Aga Khan Music
Initiative in Central Asia – featured three groups
of performers: Tengir-Too, from Kyrgyzstan, The Academy
of Shashmaqâm, from Tajikistan, and Homayun Sakhi
and Taryalai Hashimi, from Afghanistan (via California).
All
of these performers are featured on Music of Central
Asia, volumes 1-3, which was released by Smithsonian
Folkways in March 2006. The innovative series, which
will eventually comprise 10 volumes, includes a CD and
a DVD featuring a documentary film on the musicians
as well as interactive instrument glossaries and maps.
For more information on purchasing the CD/DVDs, please
visit the Smithsonian
website.
2006 European Tour
The inaugural 2006 European tour presented masters of
Central Asia's traditional music as well as performers
who are revitalising the art form through new approaches
to performance style, repertory, and technique. For
information about venues and dates, please see:
2006
European Concert Schedule
Launch
of AKTC/Smithsonian Folkways recordings in Europe
The concerts also celebrate the European launch of the
first three volumes of a ten-part Smithsonian Folkways
CD and DVD anthology of Central Asian music. For more
information, please see the CD
page and all
reviews.
Introduction
Music
and musicians have historically played a vital role in the
cultures of Central Eurasia and the Middle East. Music traditionally
served not only as entertainment, but as a way to reinforce
social and moral values, and musicians provided models of
exemplary leadership. Whether bringing listeners closer
to God, sustaining cultural memory through epic tales, or
strengthening the bonds of community through festivity and
celebration, musicians have been central to social life.
In 2000, recognition of this important role led His Highness
the Aga Khan to establish the Aga Khan Music Initiative
in Central Asia (AKMICA) with the aim of assisting in the
preservation of Central Asia's musical heritage by ensuring
its transmission to a new generation of artists and audiences,
both inside the region and beyond its borders. For more
information, please see the Introduction.
AKMICA
strives to achieve the goals of preserving and promoting
Central Asian music through four distinct, but mutually
reinforcing programme areas: Supporting Tradition Bearers;
Music Touring and Festivals programmes; Documentation and
Dissemination; and collaboration with the Silk Road Project.
Supporting
Tradition-Bearers
AKMICA
supports a group of exceptional musical tradition-bearers
who are revitalising important musical repertories throughout
Central Asia by transmitting their traditions to students.
Formerly inaugurated in 2003, the Programme is currently
operating in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
and Uzbekistan. At the core of the Tradition-Bearers Programme
is the time-honoured process of apprenticeship known as
ustad-shagird, in which master musicians, or ustads,
provide intensive instruction rooted in oral transmission
of a repertory. AKMICA looks for three essential qualities
in the musician-educators it supports: vision, passion,
and a history of outstanding achievement in musical performance
and teaching.
Throughout
Central Asia, AKMICA-sponsored tradition-bearers work both
in self-initiated music centres and schools, and within
guild-like networks that encourage collegiality and communication
among independent master teachers. As part of their mission
of promoting musical transmission, tradition-bearer centres
work to develop new materials and methodologies for teaching
traditional music, involve students in ethnographic documentation
of local traditions, and work toward building appreciation
of authentic traditional music among audiences in Central
Asia. AKMICA provides administrative and financial support
to centres and schools, and in some cases, a stipend to
students. Support is renewed on the basis of an annual review
with the longterm goal of helping centres, schools, and
guilds to become self-supporting through tuition, barter,
and local patronage.
Kazakhstan
In
Qzyl-Orda, in central Kazakhstan, renowned epic performer
and scholar Almas Almatov is conserving and digitising archival
recordings of epic singers, conducting ethnographic expeditions
with advanced students, and preparing audio-visual materials
to support the training of a new generation of performers
of oral epic and poetry. During the first year of AKMICA
support, Almatov released two compact discs, a CD-ROM, and
a video devoted to epic traditions. His students excel as
performers of epic poetry and music, and are equally adept
at electronically transcribing epic texts from handwritten
notebooks kept by old masters, and using computers to de-noise
old recordings.
In Almaty, Abdulhamit Raimbergenov, director and founder
of the Kokil Music College, is working to expand his innovative
approach to teaching Kazakh traditional music to children.
Students who attend his college are not specially selected
for musical talent, and most do not intend to become professional
musicians. Raimbergenov's goal is to create educated and
appreciative audiences for the next generation of traditional
musicians under the assumption that music will not survive
unless it is performed in a social milieu in which listeners
understand and support it. The culmination of Kokil's 2003
activities was a week-long seminar for secondary school
music teachers on Raimbergenov's orally-based approach to
teaching traditional music. The seminar brought together
participants from Kazakhstan's many regions as well as from
Kyrgyzstan as part of AKMICA's efforts to stimulate interaction
among musical tradition-bearers in different parts of Central
Asia. Raimbergenov's aim in 2004 is to extend the teacher-training
seminar programme to the most distant regions of Kazakhstan.
In 2003, Raimbergenov's method was officially approved for
use in Kazakhstan's national music school curriculum.
Kyrgyzstan
AKMICA’s
Bishkek-based Centre Ustat-Shagirt (or Ustad-Shagird, i.e.
Master-Apprentice) currently employs five master teachers
– Nurlanbek Nyshanov, Nurak Abdyrakhmanov, Zainidin
Imanaliev, Namazbek Uraliev and Bakyt Chytyrbaev –
each tutoring a group of students ranging in age from 6
to 20. Master teachers provide regular instruction on komuz,
qyl-qiyak, temir-comuz, choor, and chopo-choor. In each
case, the pedagogic method centres around oral transmission,
in contrast to the notation-based teaching commonly employed
in Kyrgyz music schools and in the National Conservatory.
Students meet frequently with their teacher, and learn the
küü repertory by ear. Aural learning facilitates
the process of extemporization and improvisation that is
at the heart of Kyrgyz music.
In
addition to sponsoring the Centre Ustad-Shagird, AKMICA
supports an extensive Music Touring Programme in which Kyrgyz
musicians have figured prominently. Among the most active
ensembles in the touring programme is Tengir-Too, a Bishkek
– based group directed by Nurlanbek Nyshanov, who
is also one of the master teachers in the Centre Ustat-Shagirt.
During the past year, Tengir-Too has performed Kyrgyz music
to large and enthusiastic audiences in Belgium, France,
Germany, Greece, Morocco, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
and the United Kingdom. Early next year, their first CD
will be released worldwide to launch a new anthology of
Central Asian music co-produced by AKMICA and the Smithsonian
Institution, the national museum network of the United States.
For an introduction to the series, please see the Quicktime
Movie.
Tajikistan
Abduvali
Abdurashidov, a leading music scholar and celebrated performer
of Tajik-Uzbek classical music (Shashmaqam) is
founder of the Navo Centre of Music and Poetry and director
of the AKMICA-sponsored Academy of Shashmaqam in Dushanbe.
The Academy provides an elite group of students with an
intensive four-year course of study in Shashmaqam, as well
as traditional prosody and poetics (aruz), and music theory
(ilm-e musiqi). Graduates of the programme earn a diploma
validated by the Ministry of Education.
Pedagogic
work is linked to musical performances, recordings, and
ethnographic expeditions that will help assure the continuity
of the Shashmaqam. During the Academy's first year of operation,
students worked with Abduvali Abdurashidov to recover musical
textures, rhythms, and formal features characteristic of
the Shashmaqam's pre-Soviet performance style. The students
also 4 began performing their carefully crafted version
of the Shashmaqam to enthusiastic audiences in Tajikistan
and Uzbekistan. This coming autumn, they will perform in
the AKMICA-sponsored “Voices of Central Asia”
concert at the English National Opera.
Through
his Khunar Centre, Sultonali Khudoiberdiev has organised
a master-apprentice (ustadshagird) programme in Khojand,
Isfara, Ura-Tyube and other cities in Northern Tajikistan,
and is preparing to open a special music school for gifted
children. Students study one-on-one with master musicians,
assimilating classical art song and instrumental music through
oral transmission.
Uzbekistan
In
Tashkent, two leading musicologists and music educators,
Ravshan Yunusov and Aqil Ibragimov, have written a new music
textbook for beginning and intermediate students based on
indigenous music theory, repertories, and performance traditions.
The textbook will be introduced into the curriculum of music
schools during the coming year as a replacement for textbooks
based exclusively on European music.
Afghanistan
AKMICA activities in Afghanistan are centered around the
spiritual and physical revival of Kucheh Kharabat, the musicians'
quarter in Kabul's old city, and a centre of Kabul's distinctive
art music tradition.
Depleted
in the late 1970s as well as during the Coalition Period,
when musicians fled Afghanistan, mostly for Peshawar and
Quetta, Kucheh Kharabat ceased to exist during the Taliban
rule. Today, with many master musicians returning to Afghanistan
and re-opening their music schools, Kucheh Kharabat has
acquired new symbolic significance.
AKMICA's
Ustad-Shagird Music Training Scheme (Program-e amuseshi
ustad-shagird AKMICA) began operation in 2003 and currently
supports masters (ustads) who teach vocal music, harmonium,
rubab, delruba and tabla, each selecting his students on
a merit basis. Plans to extend the project beyond Kabul,
as well as to include oral history and a recording component,
are currently in development.
Music
Touring and Festivals Programme
The
Music Touring and Festivals Programme was created to celebrate
Central Asian musical traditions in regions where they are
little known, and integrate leading exponents of these traditions
into the global network of music presenting institutions.
The Programme achieved a succes d'estime in its European
tours of winter and summer 2002, when AKMICA artists enchanted
audiences in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
In
2003, AKMICA conceived and co-produced a festival programme
“Via Kaboul: Musiques de l'Asie centrale sans frontières”
in Paris, France. Twenty musicians and dancers from Afghanistan,
Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan performed at
Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe in three theatricalised
concerts, with parallel lectures at the Musée Guimet
and workshops and master classes at the Maison Populaire
de Montreuil. The partnership with Odéon-Théâtre
de l'Europe represented a breakthrough in concert presentations
of traditional music in that theatre technology –
lighting, set design, and overhead projection – became
integral elements of the performance, generating widespread
media coverage.
In
2004, AKMICA is preparing an expanded touring programme
of music from Central Asian. The five-week-long tour includes
major performances at the Festival de la Musique Sacrée
in Dijon, France, the English National Opera in London,
the Ultima Festival in Oslo, and the World Music Expo (WOMEX)
in Essen, Germany as well as at venues in Brussels, Turin,
and Milan. The tour programme will also feature numerous
educational events such as workshops, lecturedemonstrations,
and master classes.
Documentation
and Dissemination
The
Music Initiative has undertaken a long-term collaboration
with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage of the
Smithsonian Institution, the national museum and research
complex of the United States, to create a ten-volume Anthology
of Central Asian Music. When complete, the Anthology will
include compact discs, DVDs, photographs, and detailed booklet
notes for each volume. The Anthology will consist primarily
of new recordings as well as selected archival recordings
drawn from important collections in Central Asia. One of
the Music Initiative's goals in producing the Anthology
is to set new standards of professionalism in ethnographic
sound recording and videography. The Anthology will be released
worldwide by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. The first
three volumes, scheduled for release in spring, 2005, feature
musicians from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. “Tengir-Too:
Mountain Music from Kyrgyzstan,” presents a panoramic
view of Kyrgyz music performed by the ensemble Tengir-Too
as well as by distinguished solo performers such as komuz
players Nurak Abdyrakhmanov and Zainidin Imanaliev, and
Manas reciter Rysbek Jumabaev.
The
Dushanbe-based Academy of Shashmaqam, sponsored by the Aga
Khan Music Initiative and directed by Tajik classical musician
Abduvali Abdurashidov, is featured in a recording devoted
to the courtly art song cycles known as Shashmaqam. Abdurashidov's
nine-person ensemble breathes new life into the Shashmaqam's
refined, Sufi-inspired poetic texts and ecstatic lyricism
during their hour-long vocal tour de force. From Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, Uyghur vocalist and tanbur virtuoso Tughluk
Rozi leads his seven-piece Sanam Uyghur Ensemble in a rousing
performance of Uyghur festive music drawn both from the
classical muqam and from the rich repertory of Uyghur folksong.
Future releases in the Anthology series will feature music
from Afghanistan, Badakhshan, Kazakhstan, Qaraqalpakstan,
and Uzbekistan.
Collaboration
with the Silk Road Project
The
Initiative's creative partnership with the Silk Road Project
began in 2000 and has since resulted in festivals, concert
tours, recordings and innovative collaborations. The Silk
Road Project and its performance unit, the Silk Road Ensemble,
both founded and directed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, is devoted
to exploring musical tradition as a resource for innovation
and creativity. In 2003 AKMICA presented Yo-Yo Ma and the
Silk Road Ensemble in a nine-day concert tour of Central
Asia featuring concerts and workshops in Bishkek, Almaty,
and Dushanbe. The partnership has recently been extended
to develop multimedia programmes for a new “Museum
Initiative” in which works of visual art join traditions
of oral literature and world music through performances,
exhibitions, and educational events in some of the world's
leading museums. Newly-created multimedia programmes have
been presented at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts
in January 2004, and, most recently, at the British Library
in London, accompanying the exhibition “The Silk Road:
Trade, Travel, War and Faith”.
Related
Site: The Silk Road Project
For
further information please contact:
For
Press:
Sam
Pickens
Information Officer
Aga Khan Development Network
P.O. Box 2049
1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Tel: (+41 22) 909 7277
Fax: (+41 22) 909 7292
Mobile: (+41 78) 661 8714
Email: info@akdn.org
Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia (AKMICA):
Fairouz
R. Nishanova
Director, AKMICA
Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Aga Khan Development Network
P.O. Box 2049
1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Email: akmica@akdn.org
Theodore Levin
Senior Project Consultant, AKMICA
Aga Khan Trust for Culture
Aga Khan Development Network
P.O. Box 2049
1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland
Email: akmica@akdn.org
Exclusive
artist management and tour co-production:
Sabine
Chatel
Zamzama Productions
156, bd Magenta
75010 Paris
France
Tel.: + 33 1 44 63 00 34
Fax: + 33 1 42 46 22 94
Email: info@zamzama.net
Website: www.zamzama.net
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