In this deeply researched book, renowned scholar Walter Feldman traces the historical development of Mevlevi music and brings to light the remarkable musical and mystical aesthetics of the Mevlevi ayin – the instrumental and vocal accompaniment to the sublime ceremony of the ‘Whirling’ Dervishes.
This is a lecture on the relationships between Ottoman music and Ashkenazic Klezmer music given at the Eshkolot Project in Moscow in October 2017.
A 45 Minute Lecture on topics from the book Klezmer: Music, History, & Memory given in October 2017 at the Eshkolot Project in Moscow.
This video of the Ashkenazic Jewish dance "Khosidl" was produced by the Eshkolot Project during a workshop in Moscow in October 2017.
Throughout the Ottoman 18th century a trend that might be termed “modernity” was seen in new concepts of music theory, in an emphasis on musical notation, and an unprecedented collaboration of Sufi Muslim, Greek Orthodox and Armenian musicians in creating a new repertoire and style. This trend seems to have its beginning with the Moldavian composer and theorist Prince Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723), his teacher Mustafa Itri and the Mevlevi composer Osman Dede. This talk aims to examine how together they and the next generations of musicians reconstructed both the theory and practice of the music of the Ottoman Court.
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This workshop aims to provoke discussion and to facilitate future research surrounding the term "locally generated modernity” from a historical and contemporary perspective in the context of Islamic and Eastern Orthodox societies. During the “long” 18th century the Ottoman Empire demonstrated unexpected strength as well as cultural and political innovations. Over the past two decades Ottoman historians have employed the term “locally generated modernity” for a process that had its beginnings in the 17th century and both preceded and partly conflicted with attempts to modernize Ottoman society along Western lines in the first half of the 19th century. By approaching these local changes as an alternative form of “modernity,” scholars acquire a powerful means to understand the potential latent within these societies.
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