مقام
The Maqām Project
The Maqam Studio is an initiative of composer, santur player, trumpeter, and vocalist, Amir ElSaffar.
Mission
The Maqam Project aims to ensure the Maqam’s survival and continuity among communities of the Arab and Islamic world and their diasporas, while expanding its possibilities in contemporary musical and artistic forms.
This mission is twofold:
Archiving, documenting, preserving, and teaching the centuries old Maqam music of Iraq and the Middle East.
Creating and commissioning new works that engage with the Maqam toward innovating new musical approaches.
Overview
The Maqam is a system of musical modes that has been practiced for millennia in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. It is the music of Arab and Turkic peoples, Kurds, Persians, and the many populations that inhabit this part of the world. It is the living legacy of Mesopotamian and Nile Valley civilizations, and is part of the shared history of humanity.
Maqam is spiritual music, and is used in the sacred music of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish people of the region. It is also performed in secular spheres, traditionally in coffeehouses and private homes. Maqam has had a lasting influence on European, Indian, African, and African American music and is considered as one of the great musical legacies of humanity. Today, Maqam traditions are in danger of extinction.
Preserving knowledge of this great musical heritage is vital, as it represents societies that have experienced great turmoil, wars, and destruction in recent decades, and have been typically underrepresented in cultural spheres, and misrepresented in mass media. Maqam can be an important resource for communities of this region and in the diaspora toward empowerment and affirmation of existence.
Beyond these communities, the Maqam holds enormous potential to enrich the larger world of music, with its use of microtones, highly ornate melodic lines, deep and powerful poetry, and infectious rhythms, all of which combine to create a trance-like state known as tarab, or musical ecstasy.
Maqam is more than mere notes and scales;
it is a philosophy of sound.
Maqam Project Staff, Personnel, and Community
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Artist and Artistic DirectorComposer, trumpeter, santur player, vocalist.
Has performed and taught Maqam internationally for 20 years, preserving its original form and innovating new approaches.
Has raised awareness of Maqam, introducing it to musicians and new audiences.
From 2008-2018 was Music Curator at Alwan for the Arts, NYC’s hub for Arabic culture, presenting the annual MaqamFest.
Brought Hamid Al-Saadi to the United States in 2018 on an Artist Protection Fund Fellowship through the IIE.
Role: artist/composer, curator of programming
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Maqam reciter and AuthorityCurrently the only living practitioner of Iraqi Maqam who has memorized the entire Baghdadi repertoire.
Authored “Al Maqam wa Buhoor al Angham” (2008) which contains information on the music and poetry of the Maqam.
Recorded and released 10 albums in the 1990s, and is releasing his forthcoming album in 2024.
Composed the first two new Maqamat added to the repertoire in almost a century.
Has taught weekly Maqam Class at Sarah Lawrence College, since 2019
Role: performer, teacher, authority on archive, author of Maqam book
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Archive Manager, ResearcherCompleting a PhD at CUNY with a specialty in Music Archiving
Oud player, has spent years studying in Lebanon, Cairo, and Baghdad
Primary contact of Maqam archives in and outside of Iraq
Role: managing the archiving project, metadata
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AdvisorProfessor of Sociology at Rutgers, scholar of the Middle East, Islam(s), Feminist movements
Has studied Maqam with Hamid Al-Saadi for five years, and is currently learning from him under a NYSCA apprenticeship fellowship.
Role: providing social and historical context and awareness, Maqam apprenticeship, contact with Iraq-based academic and cultural institutions