Lost Paradise : Andalusi Music In Urban North Africa.

For more than a century, urban North Africans have sought to protect and revive Andalusi music, a prestigious Arabic-language performance tradition said to originate in the so-called lost paradise of medieval Islamic Spain. Yet despite the Andalusi repertoire’s enshrinement as the national classical music of postcolonial North Africa, its devotees continue to describe it as being in danger of disappearance. This book explores the close connection between the paradox of patrimony and the questions of embodiment, genealogy, secrecy, and social class that have long been central to Andalusi musical practice.

352 p.; 24 cm.
Cloth

Language: English
ISBN: 022632706X
ISBN13: 9780226327068