Évènements

Avec Anne Rasmussen*

Among scholars and citizens of the Islamicate world, Indonesia is renowned for its rich culture of Qur’anic recitation, for its multi-tiered system of public and private Islamic education, and since 1945, the year of Indonesian independence, for its dynamic interplay of religion, politics, and social life. Les well-documented are the ways in which Islamic performance – from religious ritual to sacred song to pious pop – shapes and publicly articulates individual and community identities. Dynamically illustrated with materials from over 20 years of ethnographic research in the region, Anne K. Rasmussen introduces and explores the meaning and the impact of Islamic vocal forms, most of them rooted in tilawa, the recitation of the Qur’an, with roots that extend deep into Indonesia’s local cultures and branches that extend across the Indian Ocean.

Anne K. Rasmussen is professor of ethnomusicology and Middle Eastern studies at the College of William and Mary where she also director the
William and Mary Middle Eastern Music Ensemble, established in 1994. Past president of the Society for Ethnomusicology (2015-2017), her scholarship and teaching encompass music of the Islamicate world, with a focus on Indonesia and the Arabian Peninsula, music and community in a multicultural United States, and arts policy and patronage. She is the recipient of four fellowships for research in Indonesia and the Arabian Gulf, and author or co-editor of several books and articles on the intersection of religion, gender, and performance in Indonesia, the music of Oman, and music and community in the United States. Anne Rasmussen blends teaching, research, and performance as a musician in a variety of musical styles. She sings, plays piano, ‘ud, qanun, and riqq, and maintains a busy schedule of rehearsal and performance with the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble that she directs and as a soloist and collaborator. This semester, she is guest professor at the Sorbonne for the month of March 2024.