Ethnomusicologist to perform love music of the Ottoman Middle East at Arthur Zankel Music Center
Ethnomusicologist, performer, and educator Joseph Alpar explores the intertwined histories of Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Ottoman Empire through music at a free performance at Arthur Zankel Music Center, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 16.
The central theme of the concert, "Aşk: Music, Love, and Mysticism in the Ottoman World," is love — aşk in Turkish (pronounced ah-shk) — in all its forms. It will feature poignant songs of unrequited desire, lyrical wedding ballads about marital loyalty, bawdy tunes delighting in infidelity, driving Sufi and Jewish mystical songs about divine and earthly beloveds, and musical vignettes of everyday courtship, relationships, and separation.
The concert will tell an inspiring story of shared musical traditions and intense cultural collaboration between the peoples of the Ottoman world in several languages — Turkish, Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), Greek, and Arabic. Alpar will sing and perform on several Turkish and Greek instruments, joined by a stellar ensemble.
Alpar currently teaches at Bennington College, and his research centers on musical and religious practices in Turkey and former Ottoman territories, Jewish music, Sufi music, and music and modernity. Alpar earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, having completed a dissertation titled “Music and Jewish Practice in Contemporary Istanbul: Preserving Heritage, Bending Tradition.” Alpar is also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and singer of Middle Eastern and Western art music.
He is the director of David’s Harp, an acclaimed Philadelphia-based ensemble specializing in the music of Turkey, Greece, and North Africa, particularly in the music of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. He has taught previously in the music departments of Swarthmore College, Temple University, and CUNY Hunter College. He was a fellow in the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, to study and contribute to the Jewish Life in Modern Islamic Contexts project.
The event is sponsored by Skidmore’s Jacob Perlow Series, Office of Special Programs, and departments of Music, Environmental Studies and Sciences, Religious Studies, Political Science, and History. Funding is provided by endowments established by Jacob Perlow, an immigrant to the U.S. in the 1920s who was committed to furthering Jewish education, and by a bequest from Beatrice Perlman Troupin.
