Ruth F. Davis

Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and Its Jewish Diasporas - Europea: Ethnomusicologies and Modernities Ruth F. Davis

Brief Description: Following a trajectory from medieval Al-Andalus to present-day Israel via North Africa, Italy, Turkey and Syria, pausing for perspectives from Enlightenment Europe, Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas tells of diverse song and instrumental traditions born of the multiple musical encounters between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors in different Mediterranean diasporas, and of the revival and renewal of those traditions in present-day Israel. Through this collection of essays from Philip V. Bohlman, Daniel Jutte, Tony Langlois, Piergabriele Mancuso, John O Connell, Vanessa Paloma, Carmel Raz, Dwight Reynolds, Edwin Seroussi, and Jonathan Shannon, with opening and closing contributions by Ruth F. Davis and Stephen Blum, this team of distinguished ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, linguists and performers explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the complex and diverse processes and conditions of intercultural and intracultural musical encounter in Al-Andalus and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas. Individually and together the authors consider how musical traditions acquired new functions and meanings in different social, political and diasporic contexts, they explore the historic role of Jewish musicians as cultural intermediaries between the different faith communities, and they consider how music is implicated in projects of remembering and forgetting as societies come to terms with mass exodus by reconstructing their narratives of the past."Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction: Musical Exodus, Musical Incoming Chapter 1: Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and the Formation of Medieval Andalusian Music by Dwight F. Reynolds Chapter 2: Judeo-Spanish melodies in the liturgy of Tangier, Morocco: Feminine Imprints in a Masculine Space by Vanessa Paloma Elbaz Chapter 3: The Place of Music in Early Modern Italian Jewish Culture by Daniel Jutte Chapter 4: Fiore d eterno: Music and Liturgy of the Jews of San Nicandro Garganico by Piergabriele Mancuso Chapter 5: Enlightenment Andalus Herder s Search for Mediterranean Modernity in the Jewish Past by Philip V. Bohlman Chapter 6: Modal Trails, Model Trials: Musical Migrants and Mystical Critics in Turkey by John Morgan O Connell Chapter 7: Jewish Fingers and Phantom Musical Presences: Remembrance of Jewish Musicians in 20th C. Aleppo, Syria by Jonathan H. Shannon Chapter 8: Jewish Musicians in the Musique Orientale of Oran, Algeria by Tony Langlois Chapter 9: Tafillalt s Soulmate: A Snapshot on the Israeli Piyyut Revival by Carmel Raz Chapter 10: Islands of Musical Memory: Performing Selihot According to the Codex Siftei Renanot in Al-Andalus, Djerba, Tripoli, and Israel from the Eleventh to the Twenty-first Centuries by Edwin Seroussi Afterword by Stephen Blum Appendix Index About the Contributors"Biographical Note: Ruth F. Davis is University Reader in Ethnomusicology and Fellow and Director of Studies in Music at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. She has published extensively on the music of North Africa, the Middle East and the wider Mediterranean, especially on her fieldwork in mainland Tunisia and in the Jewish community of Djerba, and on Robert Lachmann's archive projects in Mandatory Palestine. Her edition of Lachmann's "Oriental Music" broadcasts was published by A-R Editions in 2013, with accompanying CD set of digitally restored recordings. Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Publisher Marketing: Nearly eight centuries, starting from the Muslim conquest of Spain in 711 until the final expulsion of the Jews in 1492, Muslims, Jews and Christians shared a common Andalusian culture under alternating Muslim and Christian rule. Following their expulsion, the Spanish and Arabic- speaking Jews joined pre-existing diasporic communities and established new ones across the Mediterranean and beyond. In the twentieth century, radical social and political upheavals in the former Ottoman and European-occupied territories led to the mass exodus of Jews from Turkey and the Arab Mediterranean, the majority settling in Israel. Following a trajectory from medieval Al-Andalus to present-day Israel via North Africa, Italy, Turkey and Syria, pausing for perspectives from Enlightenment Europe, Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas tells of diverse song and instrumental traditions born of the multiple musical encounters between Jews and their Muslim and Christian neighbors in different Mediterranean diasporas, and of the revival and renewal of those traditions in present-day Israel. Through this collection of essays from Philip V. Bohlman, Daniel Jutte, Tony Langlois, Piergabriele Mancuso, John O Connell, Vanessa Paloma, Carmel Raz, Dwight Reynolds, Edwin Seroussi, and Jonathan Shannon, with opening and closing contributions by Ruth F. Davis and Stephen Blum, this team of distinguished ethnomusicologists, cultural historians, linguists and performers explore from multidisciplinary perspectives the complex and diverse processes and conditions of intercultural and intracultural musical encounter in Al-Andalus and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas. Individually and together the authors consider how musical traditions acquired new functions and meanings in different social, political and diasporic contexts, they explore the historic role of Jewish musicians as cultural intermediaries between the different faith communities, and they consider how music is implicated in projects of remembering and forgetting as societies come to terms with mass exodus by reconstructing their narratives of the past. The essays in Musical Exodus: Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas extend beyond the music of medieval Iberia and its Mediterranean Jewish diasporas to wider aspects of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations, theories of musical interaction and hybridization and their cultural meanings, and musical expressions of diasporic and minority communities. They address how music is implicated in constructions of ethnicity and nationhood and of myth and history, and they interrogate the recent resurgence of Al-Andalus as a symbol of multicultural tolerance in musical projects that claim to promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. This work is a vital contribution to scholars of ethnomusicology, and of European and Jewish history."

Contributor Bio:  Davis, Ruth Ruth Davis is Lecturer in Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Wollongong, where she is also a member of the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security. Her research interests revolve around the international legal regime for the protection of the marine environment, with a particular interest in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the field of international law for cetaceans.