Music in Arabia

Music in Arabia extends and challenges existing narratives of the region's distinctive but understudied music to reveal diverse and dynamic music cultures rooted in centuries-old heritage.

Contributors to Music in Arabia bring a critical eye and ear to the contemporary soundscape, musical life, and expressive culture in the Gulf region. Including work by leading scholars and local authorities, this collection presents fresh perspectives and new research addressing why musical expression is fundamental to the area's diverse, transnational communities. The volume also examines music circulation as a commodity, such as with the production of early recordings, the transnational music industry, the context of the Arab Spring, and the region's popular music markets. As a bonus, readers can access a linked website containing audiovisual examples of the music, dance, and expressive culture introduced throughout the book.

With the work of resident scholars and heritage practitioners in conversation with that of researchers from the United States and Europe, Music in Arabia offers both context and content to clarify how music articulates identity and nation among multiethnic, multiracial, and multinational populations.

Issa Boulos is Director of the Harper Community Music and Arts Center at Harper College. His compositions are commissioned and performed by nationally acclaimed orchestras and ensembles, and his original scores are featured in documentary films. Virginia Danielson is Associate of the Harvard Music Department and Visiting Scholar at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is author of "The Voice of Egypt": Umm Kulthūm, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century and editor (with Dwight Reynolds and Scott Marcus) of The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Vol. 6: The Middle East. Anne K. Rasmussen is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Bickers Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the College of William & Mary. She is also Director of the William and Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble and past president of the Society for Ethnomusicology. She is author of Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Contemporary Indonesia and editor (with Kip Lornell) of The Music of Multicultural America: Performance, Identity, and Community in the United States and (with David Harnish) of Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia.