MUSC 3045 - World Music Across Cultures: Advanced: The Middle East

Welcome to Syrian Cassette Archives – an initiative to preserve, share and research sounds and stories from Syria’s abundant cassette era (1970s-2000s. The growing collection features an overview of musical styles from Syriaʼs many communities and neighbors, including Syrian Arabs, Assyrians, Kurds and Armenians, as well as Iraqi cassettes and music from Iraqi’s that had been displaced by sanctions and war.

Iranian-Canadian music scholar provides insight into traditional Middle Eastern Music through in-depth documentary films and live recordings.

A.J. Racy, is a performer, composer and Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Born in Lebanon, he comes from a well-known family of artists, scholars, and academics. Racy is internationally recognized for his extraordinary musicianship and numerous publications on Arabic music. The concert presents a repertoire of traditional, folk, and popular Arab music as well as original compositions and improvisations.

Performance from Münir Nurettin Beken, ud at
Yale University April 2007

This article from the music magazine Cracked features both modern and traditional music from Palestine.

In this 1959 collection, American folklorist Harold Courlander documents a tradition of Palestinian folk song that has previously been known only through oral ritual. The compilation features vocally driven recordings as they are performed for ceremonial and spiritual purposes, including "Song of the Month of Fasting," "Recitation from the Koran," and several wedding songs. Songs capture different dialects and regional choral techniques

“What you hear on this record is an echo—the echo of a very important phase in the long struggle of the people of Palestine.” So writes Kamal Boullata in the liner notes to this 1974 recording, spoken (in English) and sung (in classical and colloquial Arabic) by members of the Palestinian Liberation Movement following the Six-Day War of 1967. The liner notes contain a history of the Palestinian people, background on the singers and the genesis of the songs, lyrics in Arabic and English, several of Boullata’s line drawings, and a glossary.