by Ali Nourbakhsh
Based on references to the instrument in early literature and on depictions in ancient sculpture and illustrations of musicians playing the daf, it is widely believed that the daf has been used in the Middle East for at least 2,000 years.
(Photo courtesy of Foad Tohidi)
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by Sholeh Johnston and Richard Barton
Listen to each of the ten albums that Lian Ensemble has produced during its 16 year recording history and one of the first realizations that strikes you is the quality of the guest performers and the rightness of the fused sounds. Again and again one is struck by unexpected musical combinations that nonetheless have a timeless quality, enveloping listeners in a cloud that transports them beyond themselves
(Photo Courtesy of Lian Ensemble)
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WHY MONKS CHOOSE SILENCEby Daniel Skach-Mills
To step out, once and for all,
from under the sag ging,
word-weary roof of the mouth.
To be the vast,
unfeathered nest of emptiness
out of which sound arises,
and into which it lands.
To live like the open ear of a furrow
listening for a seed—
loves infant hand knocking from inside,
wanting in to be the world.
(Artwork by Gordana Adamovic-Mladenovic, gordanaphoto.com)
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by Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons
I cannot imagine the Civil Rights Movement without the music we produced as we marched, sat in or were jailed. The music was the articulate voice of the masses of the people.
The music of black spirituals emerged for the suffering of African slaves in America. But how did it infuse the spirit of non-violence in the historic Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, that broke the back of institutionalize racism in the South? The scholar Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons offers a moving answer, weaving together history and music with her own personal experience as a foot-soldier for freedom in the crusade led by Dr. Martin Luther King.
(Painting by Anita Philyaw, anitaphilyaw.com)
by Fitzroy Morrissey
Five different Sufi orders performed on successive days during the Festival. A Sufi tariqah is by its very nature autonomous, distinct and traditional.In this thoughtful and beautifully written article, Fitzroy Morrisey narrates his personal experience of the 2011 annual festival of Sufi culture in Fez, Morocco. Beginning with a succinct exploration of the dichotomy between Sufism as it is commonly conceived and Sufism as it is actually lived, the author devotes the rest of the article to a thrilling description of the God-intoxicated music of diverse Sufi musicians, including classical singers, professional Sufi groups, and five Sufi tariqahs from Morocco and Turkey.
(Photo by Thierry Beauvir, beauvir.com)
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by Dani Kopoulus
Dani Kopoulus takes us on a journey deep into the mind and soul of one darvish meditating upon god and the master, swept up in the sounds of the music of a sufi sama session. The transcendent melodies and rhythms that surround her bring forth a stream of thoughts and images that flow from a burning heart and return to the silence of the breath.
(Photomontage Martin Harris)
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by Ellen Oak
A DOOR OPENS – I first encountered the early chant of the western church in a music history course at Swarthmore College. Professor Peter Graham Swing introduced the topic with descriptions and interpretations of the chant as a precursor to polyphony. But my mind could not travel with him. I had fallen in love with the chant at first sight, and desired to stay.
For singer, composer and conductor Ellen Oak, the practice of Christian chant has been a way of life for over 30 years. In a poetic and passionate article, Oak shares her knowledge and experience of this mystical tradition, and her own development of a long disused practice rooted in the chanting of the ancient Hebrews and other near-eastern peoples.
(Image © 2012 John Teti Sr, lightsongstudio.com)
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FROM THE EDITORSTHE MUSIC ISSUE: ART | POETRY | CULTUREWATCH | BOOK REVIEWS | & more…
Music can be transforming, healing, inspiring, exciting, disturbing, soothing, and profoundly moving—but what makes it sacred? This issue of SUFI explores music through several of spiritual traditions in their historical and contemporary contexts, musical groups and instruments used in sacred music, getting to the heart of why music is (and has been for millennia) a source of spiritual inspiration and transcendence.
SILENCE, the Breath is Precious, Discourse by Alireza Nurbakhsh
Read the full discourse online >
THE NAKED VOICE by Ellen Oak
KRISHNA DAS On Kirtan, What Makes Music Sacred and Inspiration from Neem Karoli Baba Interviewed by Llew Smith and Annie Stopford
Read the complete interview >
DAF The Sound of Complex Simplicity by Ali Nourbakhsh
LET IT SHINE Music in the Civil Rights Movement by Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons
LIAN ENSEMBLE Musical Collaborations and Beyond by Sholeh Johnston and Richard Barton
THE FEZ FESTIVAL OF SUFI CULTURE, 2011 A Personal Experience by Fitzroy Morrissey
SAMA Narrative by Dani Kopoulos
PARVATHY BAUL The Renowned Baul Singer Shares Her Music with SUFI by Martin Harris Read full interview>
SAIN ZAHOOR Pakistan’s Mystic of Music by Sheniz Janmohamed
Listen to Sain Zahoor >
CULTUREWATCH BOOK REVIEWS
The Story of the Damascus Drum – Christopher Ryan
Chants of a Lifetime – Krishna Das
Sufi Rapper – Abd Al Malik
Music is Medicine – Martin Klabunde
Opening to Sama by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
Rung by Roger Loff
The Trappist Monastery at New Mellaray by John Krumberger
Before (The) After Quaker Meeting, August 17, 2008 by Marian K. Shapiro
K and the Birds of Winter by Paul Kane
Listening to Monteverdi by Robert Bly
The Old Accordionist by Peter Valentyne
Why Monks Choose Silence by Daniel Skach-Mills
GORDANA ADMOVIC-MLADENOVIC (gordanaphoto.com)
(Front cover Artwork: Krishna Playing the Flute – Detail ©Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY)
