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Workshop on the music of Al-Andalus

From May 19, 2023 until June 01, 2023The workshop will be held on Thursday, June 1 at 6:00 p.m.
CORDOBA
Casa Árabe headquarters (at Calle Samuel de los Santos y Gener, 9). The workshop will be held on Thursday, June 1 at 6:00 p.m. Free entry with prior registration until capacity the room’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.

On Thursday, June 1 in Cordoba, we will be hosting a workshop titled “The music of Al-Andalus in the light of the latest research: documentary sources, musical iconography and archeo-musicology.” The workshop will be given by Manuela Cortés. You can sign up now.

This activity forms part of the project “Exhibition of Moroccan Art: Cordoba, 1946.” started by Casa Árabe with the cooperation of the University of Aberdeen with the goal approaching this historical process in a holistic way.

In addition to the exhibition, which you can visit until July 14, and the congress that was already held, we have organized this second music workshop, given this time by Manuela Cortés García.

In the field of musicology in Spain, the idea that music in Al-Andalus was of an oral nature has been maintained for decades. However, research carried out over the last three decades has revealed that there were many musical manuscripts acquired by the emirs and caliphs of Al-Andalus about Eastern music, as well as those written in the lands of Al-Andalus (tenth-fourteenth centuries). Just a small portion of these manuscripts (originals and/or copies) are kept in Spanish public libraries, while most are stored at renowned libraries in Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, France, Holland, Turkey and England. In addition to these Arab documents essential to study and researching the music of Al-Andalus, in its relationship with the different disciplines, there is the musical iconography preserved in the objects of Spanish-Arab and Christian art (ninth-fourteenth centuries) spread out among various national and international museums, and the musical instruments located at Spanish archeological sites.

This workshop will address the following topics related with the chosen subject matter:

1) Brief outline of the East - Al-Andalus transcultural process during the Cordovan Emirate and Caliphate: Masters, musicians and singing slaves.

2) Earliest information about music, musicians, singing and instruments in historical treatises, biographies and literary texts (tenth-thirteenth centuries).

3) Musical manuscripts by the Al-Andalus theorists and their contents (tenth-fourteenth centuries).

4) New light shed on the music of Al-Andalus in musical iconography and archeo-musicology (ninth-fifteenth centuries).

5) State of the matter at present and challenges for music research in the coming decades.

In order to take part in the workshop, you must sign up in advance by clicking on this link.

Manuela Cortés García
An Arabist, researcher and educator, Cortés García is a numerary member of the Andalusian Academy of History (2017) with a PhD in Semitic Philology, Arabic and Islam (UAM, 1996), and a professor at the University of Cairo and the Cervantes Institutes of Baghdad and Cairo, she is also an associate professor with the Department of Music History and Sciences. The general lines of research which she has developed throughout her career have revolved around Arab music, the music of Al-Andalus, the music of the Moorish people and Andalusi-Maghrebi music in Arab document sources, as well as their relationship with humanistic and scientific disciplines. She has also completed studies on musical iconography, organology and archeo-musicology. She has authored numerous works about the history of music, such as Pasado y presente de la música andalusí (Past and Present of Music from Al-Andalus, 1996); Música y poesía en el esplendor omeya (Music and Poetry in Umayyad Splendor, 2001); Editing, translation and study of Kunnash al-Ha’ik (1996), La música en la Zaragoza islámica (Music in Islamic Saragossa, 2009). Her latest essay, Arab and Al-Andalus music in musicology studies on both shores of the Mediterranean, was published by Ediciones del Genal in 2018.
Workshop on the music of Al-Andalus
Image of the manuscript “Bayad wa Riyad” (late twelfth century).