The Middle East and Central Asia Music Forum has been running since 2007 and is open to researchers, students and anyone interested in the music and culture of the region.

In the spirit of fostering dialogue and interdisciplinarity, we hope that the issues discussed at the forum will be of interest to a broad audience, including musicologists, ethnomusicologists and other researchers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. In addition, we welcome those working on other aspects of Middle Eastern and Central Asian culture broadly speaking (dance, visual arts, media, film, literature, etc.)

Session 1

10.00 – 10.30   Sam Grant – Heavy metal migration, regional conflict, and internet usage in the Mashriq

10.30 – 11.00    Vicky Tadros – Emirati consciousness through the act of listening to Mehad Hamad

Session 2

11.30-1pm Roundtable with Matthew Machin-Autenrieth; Samuel Llano; Vanessa Paloma Duncan Elbáz, and Stephen Wilford: Microhistories of Sonic Encounter in Colonial North Africa: Representation, Symbolic Violence and Diplomacy

Session 3

2.10 – 2.40       Malika Bahovadinova – Affective bureaucracy: morality and emotions in the production of music for citizens in Tajikistan

2.40 – 3.10       Megan Rancier – “She doesn’t twerk, she dances the kamazhai”: discourses on gender and modernity in Kazakh popular music

Session 4

3.30 – 4.00 Peyman Haydarian – A computational approach to maqàm and dastgàh recognition

4.00 – 4.50 Khyam Allami – Performance and Presentation: Tuning, technology and repressed possibilities in non-western music making