School of Oriental and African Studies
Hosted The Iraq Music week concert (Musical Atlas of Iraq) on Brunei Gallery Theatre, Friday the 23rd of June
Address: School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG
Fee: £70 (concessionary fee £49)

SOAS World Music Summer School
http://www.soas.ac.uk/summermusicschool/iraqi_music_week.html

Deep Iraq: Looking back at the early days and at the art of the music

Iraq’s music represents an ancient, highly developed and multi-faceted culture. The diverse culture and deep multiethnic civilizations of Iraq have created a rich heritage of music. Baghdad was the capital of West Asia from the 7th to the 14th century, with people emigrating to Baghdad from various parts of the world. This interaction brought different nations together to make a unique and distinct music. Arabic musical styles form the majority of Iraq’s music, but with strong influences from Kurdish, Turkish and Persian music creating a unique mix.

Iraqi Music Week features a range of workshops, lectures and concerts covering different aspects of Iraqi musical tradition.

Monday 6.30-9pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre

Lecture: The maqamat of Iraqi music, presented by Yeheskel Kojaman, author of The Maqam Music Tradition of Iraq (London 2001)

The roots of modern Iraqi maqam can be traced as far back as the Abbasid era, when a large empire was controlled from Baghdad, a key city on the borders of the Arab, Turkish and Persian worlds. The modern form, however, descends directly from the 19th century. Across the Arab world, maqam (plural maqamat) refers to specific musical scales, whereas in Iraq, it can also refer to a specific kind of rule-based improvised performance. There are fifty to seventy different maqams (twenty primary ones plus sub-styles and variants), each with its own mood and characteristics. In the Iraqi maqam form, the introduction and finale surround set musical and melodic passages performed alternately by the vocalist and instrumentalists.

Tuesday 6-9pm, room L61

6-7pm Lecture: The historical context of the Iraqi maqam, presented by Prof. Owen Wright, SOAS

This lecture will consider the evolution of art music in Baghdad from the early Abbasid period on, and the historical relationship of the Iraqi maqam to the surrounding traditions in Turkey and Iran.

7-9pm Introductory demonstration: Iraqi music, presented by Ahmed Mukhtar

An introduction to style, genre, scales and maqams within the Iraqi music traditions. Demonstrated on oud (lute) and darbuka (drum). You may either observe or participate in this workshop. If you choose to participate, please ensure you bring a percussion instrument.

Wednesday 6-9pm, room L61

Workshop: Iraqi percussion, presented by Ahmed Mukhtar

Demonstrated on instruments such as darbuka, riqq, khshbah and daf. Rhythm in Iraqi music is organized into cyclical rhythmic modes known as iqa’at. Each cycle contains a fixed number of metric pulses (from 3 to 48 or even more), including a hierarchy of strong, weak and silent beats that define a groove. In performance some of the rests or silent beats may be filled in, but the underlying feel is maintained. You may either observe or participate in this workshop. If you choose to participate, please ensure you bring either a darbuka, riqq, khshbah or daf.

Thursday 6.30-8.30pm, room L61

Lecture: Music in the Iraqi-Jewish tradition, presented by Sara Manasseh

Babylonian Jewry, also known as the Jews of Mesopotamia, have lived in what is today known as Iraq for over 2,500 years, since the destruction of the First Temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C.E. (B.C.), and the subsequent Jewish exile to Babylon. The lecture considers religious and secular Jewish music traditions in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, during the first half of the twentieth century. Music in religious life - for the annual cycle of festivals and sabbaths - is primarily vocal: since the destruction of the Second Temple 70 C.E. (A.D.) it has been forbidden to play instrumental music on days of religious significance. This practice continues in the Orthodox Jewish tradition. In contrast, the annual ziyyara (pilgrimage) to the tombs of Ezekiel the Prophet (Al-Kifil on the Euphrates, south of Al-Hilla) and Ezra the Scribe (Al-Uzayr on the Tigris), events in the life cycle (for example the pre-wedding Henna ceremony) and secular musical gatherings, are strongly associated with both instrumental and vocal music. Jewish musicians - instrumentalists, singers and composers - were prominent during the first half of the twentieth century. The chalghi instrumental ensemble which represented Iraq at the Congress of Arab Music in Cairo (1932) and the two resident music ensembles for Iraq Radio (established 1936) were predominantly Jewish, and included the "modern" ensemble of the Al-Kuwaity brothers, Saleh (violinist) and Daoud (vocalist and 'oud player), who also composed songs for leading Iraqi singers of the day, including Salima (Pasha) Murad. The Jewish school for the blind (established late 1920s) also provided formal instrumental lessons, and many students, including Daoud Akram (violin) and Abraham Salman (qanoun), went on to become professional musicians both in Iraq and later in Israel. With the emigration of the majority of Iraqi Jews, including musicians, to Israel in the early 1950s, a significant chapter in the history of the Jews of Iraq came to a close.

Friday 6-10pm, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre

Concert: A Musical Atlas of Iraq

Performers: Rivers of Babylon ensemble

Rivers of Babylon ensemble was formed in 1999, specialising in the religious and secular music of the Iraqi (Babylonian) Jewish tradition: folk songs and hymns (Judeo-Arabic: shbaHoth; sing: shbaH) for Sabbaths, festivals and life cycle events, sung in Hebrew – in the Babylonian (Iraqi) pronunciation – Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic and Arabic. The melodies composed in the melodic modes (anghâm or maqâmât) of Arab music, reflect characteristics of Iraqi folk song. Most of the group members have known each other since childhood, and were born into the Baghdad Jewish community in India (Bombay and Calcutta) – representing a cultural tradition which was transported from Iraq to India and now to the UK. The group includes ethnomusicologists, IT consultants, an architect, doctor, black cab driver "...and fire prevention officer."

Suhib Al Rajb (joza)

The joza is a four-string spike fiddle with a small resonator made from half a coconut shell (the word jôza means “nut” in dialect). Suhib Al Rajb was born in Baghdad and studied joza with his father Hashim Al Rajb, one of the greatest Iraqi traditional musicians and an expert in maqamat. Suhib has participated in many international festivals such as the Music Conversance (Arab World Institute, Paris), Jarash International Festival (Jordan) and the Festival of Arab Music (Egypt). Suhib worked as music teacher and choir master at various schools in Iraq. Like his father, he is renowned as an expert in maqamat and both a soloist and an accompanist on joza.

Karim Hussein

Renowned Iraqi singer born in Nasrea in southern Iraq, he graduated from Baghdad Institute of the Fine Arts. Karim often performs on Iraqi National Television. He has released several albums, and his songs are among the most popular in Iraq.

Ahmed Mukhtar (oud) and Hassan Falih (qanun)

The oud was known already in ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq), during the Akkadian period (2359-2159 BCE), where it is documented on cylindrical seals. In the ninth century CE, this “pear-shaped lute” developed from a four-stringed to a five-stringed instrument, though both forms co-existed for several centuries after. Today the oud has five double strings, of which the three highest pairs are made of gut or nylon and the two lowest of silk wound with copper wire. Already during the Middle Ages, the oud was finding its way toward Europe. All the European names for the instrument - laut, alaude, laud, luth, liuto, lute etc - can be derived from Arabic al ’ud, calling to mind the Golden Age that this essentially Arabian instrument experienced in the West.

The qanun (ka-NOON), a classical instrument of the Arab world and Turkey, is a plucked box zither with a trapezoidal body with one rectangular side. It reached its current basic form in the Abbasid period (750-1258 AD). It is usually strung with 87 nylon strings (formerly gut) in groups of three which run across a bridge resting on five patches of fish skin. The instrument has a range of four octaves. The strings are plucked by ring-shaped plectra of buffalo horn on both index fingers.

Ahmed Mukhtar (oud), is the course leader for this Iraqi Music Week (see biographical information at bottom).

Hassan Falih (qanun, composer) was born in 1963 in Basra City in southern Iraq. Graduating from Baghdad Academy of Music and Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts, Hassan then taught qanun at the Institute of Music and the Ballet School in Baghdad. He toured extensively throughout the Middle East and Europe between 1991 and 1995. In 2001 the Arabic Music League and the Arab League designated him “Best Qanun Player of the Arab World”. Currently, he is conductor of the leading Arabic singer Kazem Al Saher’s orchestra. Hassan has performed at many international festivals, including Youth Music Festival (Moscow), Zakopanje Folk Music Festival (Poland), We Are the Future Festival (Italy) and the majority of Arabic music festivals, such as those in Kartaj, Jarash, Beit al Dian and Dubai. He has released four CDs.

Sumer Group

Sumer's repertoire consists primarily of Arabic traditional and folk music with an emphasis on twentieth-century compositions. The songs are carefully hand-picked to span more than twenty Arab countries. Sumer embraces those very special and local singing genres such as muwashahat of Andalusia, Egyptian mawwal, Iraqi maqam, pasta, boudhiyya, ataba, swehli, and niel, mountain singing from Lebanon, Gulf, Nubian and Bedouin singing, malouf of Tunisia and North Africa, Egyptian adwar, qudoud of Aleppo, and much more! Participants, if they choose to, will have the opportunity to sing with the performers.

Abid Falak

Based in Baghdad where he was born and learned music and singing methods, Abid was a highly admired religious chanter before becoming a singer. Later, he attended a renowned Iraqi muwashahat group led by the great master Rawhi Al Khmash, and learned the most important and difficult maqamat and rhythms. In the 1980s he became a leading singer for Iraqi national television and recorded many muwashahat songs. Working with many different Iraqi music groups, he has recoded two albums and many other songs for Arabic TV satellite channels.

Course Leader: Ahmed Mukhtar, now based in London, was born in Baghdad and has played the 'ud and Arabic percussion since 1979. He studied with the masters Ganim Hadad and Jameel Jerjis and is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. More recently he has visited his birth city to set up a music programme to aid recovery. He has studied and also taught performance at SOAS.

Instruments: Please see the above schedule for details.

Experience: Beginners welcome.