Book Reading: Sense and Sadness
Date and Time
Jan 26, 2019 5:30 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Jan 26, 2019 5:30 pm
450K
Join us for a fascinating discussion, a reading, and a sample of musical sounds from one of the oldest traditions of sacred singing in continuous living practice, all the while enjoying a three course meal and drink at Busboys and Poets.
Gates Cambridge alumna Tala Jarjour talks about her book Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo. When she went to Aleppo to study a unique kind of chant that has roots in early Christianity, she had no idea that in a handful of years the beautiful city she so loved would be all but destroyed, and the people whose religious music she was studying would be forced to leave their hometown, fearing for their lives. For a community that had already fled persecution in the aftermath of the First World War and found refuge in Aleppo, being on the run again was as painful as it was familiar. Being an anthropologist of religion and musicologist, Tala found herself thinking about music as being one with the people who practice it and their emotions. She decided that her book should be a story. Sadness, as it turned out, was more than an essential part of the legacy of this oral musical tradition. It was also an immediate reality in the lives of the people who carry it, and in the telling of their story.
Joining the author is a distinguished panel of specialists, including eminent ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger, former Executive Producer of Smithsonian Folkways recordings and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at UCLA (and yes, nephew of Pete and Mike Seeger). Also joining is Robin Darling Young, distinguished historian and interpreter of early Christianity, who is also Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University of America.
