Music and Encounter at the Mediterranean Crossroads

Music and Encounter at the Mediterranean Crossroads: A Sea of Voices explores the musical practices that circulate the Mediterranean Sea. Collectively, the authors relate this musical flow to broader transnational flows of people and power that generate complex encounters, bringing the diverse cultures of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East into new and challenging forms of contact. Individually, the chapters offer detailed ethnographic and historiographic studies of music’s multifaceted roles in such interactions. From collaborations between Moroccan migrant and Spanish Muslim convert musicians in Granada, to the incorporation of West African sonorities and Hasidic melodies in the musical liturgy of Abu Ghosh Abbey, Jerusalem, these communities sing, play, dance, listen, and record their diverse experiences of encounter at the Mediterranean crossroads.

Ruth F. Davis is a Life Fellow and former Director of Studies in Music at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, where she is Emeritus Reader in Ethnomusicology. She also chairs the International Council for Traditional Music Study Group on Mediterranean Music Studies.

Brian Oberlander holds a PhD in Musicology from Northwestern University.