Special Mini-Series: Music of Central Asia and the Near East
2007-2008 Season
A special focus of this year’s series is the music of Central Asia and the Near East, a region of the world offering a treasure trove of captivating musical practices virtually unknown to much of the world.
Central Asia and the Near East constitute the core region of the famous Silk Road that for centuries linked East and West. Its music manifests the intersection of the civilizations that traversed the region, settled in it, or governed it.
The series starts from the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kalmykia. It later moves to Armenia, whose distinguishable music resembles that of the Middle East and Europe. Pakistani devotional music follows next. Finally the mini-series ends with an evening of percussive music from Iran and Afghanistan.
A series of superb, eye-opening
films illuminates the region’s more contemporary aspects of artistic expression, while a number of
architectural talks reveal the ethereal beauty of its ancient past.