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The “Spiritual Sounds of Central Asia: Nomads, Mystics, and Troubadours” tour wi at Texas A&M University Oct. 28 and 29 for a performance and lecture demonstrations. College Station is only one of 11 cities on the tour which features 17 musicians from the culturally dynamic and rapidly changing region of Central Asia.

“Spiritual Sounds of Central Asia: Nomads, Mystics, and Troubadours” is designed to provide North American audiences with the opportunity to hear music from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Qaraqalpakstan (an autonomous region in Uzbekistan). The concerts will feature a panoramic range of vocal and instrumental music that showcases some of Central Asia’s finest performers in both ancient and contemporary traditions.

Performances at Texas A&M
The performance will be at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28 in the Frymire Auditorium. Frymire is the larger auditorium located in the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center with 600 seats. Tickets are on sale through the MSC box office. Prices:
• $10 for general admission.
• $5 for students.

Musicians from the touring group will deliver four lecture demonstrations on Oct. 29, which are free and open to the public. These sessions will take place in the Memorial Student Center in Room 292 at 11:30, 12:40, 1:50 and 3:00.

Kathryn Woodard, assistant professor of music, initiated the College Station stop on the tour as a continuation of the Department of Performance Studies’ offerings from Central Asia in spring 2006 also sponsored by the Aga Khan Music Initiative. These events are made possible with funds from the Ray A. Rothrock ’77 Chair in Music and the Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts.

“This extraordinary event will introduce students to the rich and varied musical traditions of Central Asia with top artists from the regions,” said Woodard. “It also serves as an outreach to our community, serving both those who come from regions of Central and South Asia and those who are curious about performing arts around the world.”

After performing in College Station, the tour will travel to Houston. The Houston performance at the Wortham Center is already sold out. It is being followed by two lecture demonstrations Oct. 31 at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

About the program: artists and sponsors
The artists, several of whom are making their North American debuts, will include the legendary Azerbaijani vocalist Alim Qasimov, whom the French newspaper Le Monde hailed as “one of the most beautiful voices of our era,” and his daughter Fargana; Bardic Divas, four women from Kazakhstan and Qaraqalpakstan who demonstrate the power and beauty of the female voice; and the Badakhshan Ensemble, which performs trance-inducing mystical songs from the majestic Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, an area known in Persian as bam-i dunya, “the roof of the world.”

The 2007 tour is a groundbreaking collaboration between the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia (AKMICA), a program of the Geneva-based Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), and the New York-based World Music Institute (WMI). The Music Initiative aims to preserve and nurture the indigenous musical traditions of Central Asia, and to ensure the transmission of the region’s musical heritage to new generations of artists and audiences. WMI, a renowned performing arts presenter, is dedicated to presenting the finest traditional music and dance from around the world.

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