VENTURA: The International Studies Program at Ventura College, in cooperation with the Ventura Center of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), will present Professor Dwight Reynolds, speaking on the “Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Musical Traditions of Medieval Islamic Spain” followed by a performance by Professor Scott Marcus and the UCSB Middle East Ensemble in the Ventura College Theatre, on Wednesday, February 13 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. There is no charge for admission to this program.
The program explores the many different offshoots of the musical heritage of al-Andalus (medieval Muslim Spain), including Andalusian songs from Algeria, songs from Sephardic and Yemeni Jewish traditions, as well as songs from eastern Arab lands such as Egypt and Syria. This commemoration of the astonishing richness and longevity of these musical traditions focuses on both threads of continuity in form and style, as well as highlighting the remarkable diversity of these various descendants of the Golden Age of al-Andalus.
Dwight F. Reynolds is professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania from the Department of Folklore & Folklife. He has been a research fellow at both the Harvard Society of Fellows and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University; his research on Andalusian music recently garnered him an international prize from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Over the past fifteen years he has researched medieval Andalusian musical traditions and their modern descendants in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, and has authored numerous articles on various aspects of this subject.
Scott Marcus is professor of music at UCSB and the founder and director of the university’s Middle East Ensemble. He received his Ph.D. in music/ethnomusicology from UCLA in 1989. In addition to his studies at UCLA under A. Jihad Racy, Prof. Marcus also studied in Cairo, Egypt with a number of the main teachers at Cairo's two music institutes. A UCSB professor since 1989, he teaches in the Music Department's Program in Ethnomusicology. He has published widely about Arab music, including his 2007 volume from Oxford University Press entitled Music in Egypt. The UCSB Middle East Ensemble is an official Ethnomusicology Performance Ensemble in the UCSB Music Department. Founded in 1989 by Professor Marcus, the ensemble has performed widely throughout the United States and some foreign countries.
This lecture is also co-sponsored by the Global and International Studies Program and the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB. For additional information, call Dr. Farzeen Nasri, Professor, International Studies, Ventura College, (805) 654-6400, ext. 1217.##### |
