The series of conferences 'Sound Mediterranean: Music from the Maghreb and the Middle East', resumes its mission to put the spotlight on the music of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, specifically Arab music, to return it to a more prominent place and thus bring the culture in which it is produced closer to our audiences.
In this second session, which will once again adopt the dynamic format of an illustrated lecture (in which musical intervals follow one after the other as a sample of the subject being discussed), the specialist José Carlos Cabrera will unravel the keys to classical Arab music, a great unknown in the West.
With roots going back to the Middle Ages, it was theorists such as the Iraqi Al-Kindi (801-873) and the Kazakh Al-Farabi (872-950) who laid the foundations of Arab music theory. It was in our land, however, that during the Golden Age of Al-Andalus, music flourished in the courts of Cordoba, Toledo, Granada and Seville, even attracting Christian kings such as Alfonso X in Spain - and Frederick II in Islamic Sicily.
Centuries later, it influenced Western music through composers such as Saint-Saëns, and after the Arab Music Congress of 1932, it was in Egypt (the pioneer country of Arab musical nationalism) that it found a centre of innovation. Composers such as Sayed Darwish and Mohammed Abdelwahab, whose works - performed by legends such as Abdel Halim Hafez and Umm Kulzum - became part of the canon of contemporary Arab music.
José Carlos Cabrera Medina, Arabist and director of the intercultural radio magazine 'Ruta Mediterránea' on Radio Andalucía Información, will explain and illustrate these issues on the following day. next 3 April, Thursday, starting at 19hat the headquarters of the Fundación Tres Culturas.