The Cornell Middle Eastern Music Ensemble and Nikolai Ruskin, director, will hold a free public performance today, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. Featured will be a selection of traditional Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Greek and Hebrew vocal and instrumental music performed on oud (lute), qanun (zither), nay (cane flute), strings, saxophone, clarinet and percussion. In addition to compositions played by the full 20-member ensemble, the program also will feature solo taqasim (instrumental improvisation) as well as smaller "chamber group" combinations of two to four musicians.
Ruskin and Martin Hatch, Cornell associate professor of music, founded the Cornell Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (CMEME) in the summer of 2002 with the purpose of exploring Middle Eastern musical traditions. CMEME boasts about 20 to 30 participants each semester, including students and faculty of Arab, Turkish, Persian, Armenian, Kurdish and Greek origin who all contribute by assisting with translations, gathering recordings and helping the non-native speakers with diction. The musical traditions of the Middle East share certain characteristics, known in Arabic music as maqam and iqa. The term maqam describes a system of modes whose intervals contain quartertones (or microtones), giving each mode a unique sound, unlike that of western music. Iqa is the term for a wide variety of rhythmic patterns played on percussion instruments that form the ground on which the melody is played. Although there are common characteristics that define the music of the Middle East, there is also a huge variety of regional variations.
The form of this year's festival at Sage Chapel conforms to tradition; although the music changes each year, the format of readings, choir anthems and congregational hymns will remain, with the content expressing a spirit of Christian nonsectarian inclusiveness appropriate to the mission of the chapel. Members of the Cornell community will serve as readers. On Sunday, James B. Maas, professor of psychology; W. Kent Fuchs, professor and dean of the College of Engineering; Francille M. Firebaugh, vice provost for land grant affairs and special assistant to the president; and Hunter Rawlings, professor of classics and president emeritus, will read. On Monday, readers include Graeme Bailey, professor of computer science; Rev. Rick L. Bair, pastor, St. Luke Lutheran Church; Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic affairs; Rev. Robert L. Johnson Jr., director emeritus of Cornell United Religious Work; and Ann Tillman, administrative assistant, Department of Music. The choir will sing Gustav Holst's "In the Bleak Midwinter," Bach's "Von Himmel Hoch," Mathias' "Sir Christmas," Berlioz's "Shepherd's Farewell," "Keep Your Lamps" (an African-American spiritual), "Noel Ayisyen" (a song of Haiti) and Pearsall's "In Dulci jubilo." The hymns will, of course, be rousing renditions of Advent and Christmas standards. Acting University Organist Timothy Olsen will play the historic 3,850-pipe Aeolian-Skinner organ.
This program is a treasured tradition at the end of the fall semester, and the Sage Chapel sanctuary will be filled with people eager to hear -- and send -- joyful words floating into the winter night.
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