Extended Family Reunions: Music of the Moors, Morocco and Us

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Studies Centre is pleased to invite you to our first event of the academic year on the theme "Music of the Middle East and North Africa". 

Please join us on Friday, Sept. 30, 2022, 12:00-1.30pm, JOR 1410 (350 Victoria Street), for Dr. Rob Simms's talk "Extended Family Reunions: Music of the Moors, Morocco and Us". The poster is attached and details are given below.

Please feel free to distribute to your colleagues, students, and anyone else you think might be interested.

Abstract: While we’re programmed to view MENA cultures as very different from the West, an objective view of history—and particularly music history—reveals layer upon layer of mutually definitive connections and interaction. After briefly sketching out the early context of this regarding North Africa, we’ll examine the influential role of Moroccan traditional music among late 20th-century Western literary, jazz and pop artists, and the particular dynamics that characterize this recent iteration of the ongoing historical relationship. This rich musical legacy may be viewed usefully as a macro-tradition integrating myriad cultures from four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe and North America.

Short bio: Rob Simms plays various lutes, flutes and percussion, and has travelled throughout the MENA region since the 1980s studying traditional repertoires. He is Associate Professor in the Music Department at York University and author books on Iraqi Maqam and (co-authored with Amir Koushkani) the great Persian vocalist Mohammed Reza Shajarian.