DUSHANBE, April 24, 2013, Asia-Plus — Performers from five countries will arrive in Tajikistan to participate in an international Shashmaqom festival that will take place in the Tajik capital.
Organized by the Ministry of Culture (MoC) and the Committee for TV and Radio-broadcasting, the event will be held at the Jomi State Complex in Dushanbe from May 10-12.
An official source at a MoC says delegations from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Iran, and Uzbekistan will participate in the Shashmaqom festival.
On May 10, the heads of the delegations will participate in the international symposium on Shashmaqom that will take place at the Ministry of Culture.
“On May 11, the guests of the festival together with singers from all regions of Tajikistan will give a concert in Dushanbe,” the source said.
A Shashmaqom Day has been celebrated in Tajikistan on May 12 since 2000, when President Emomali Rahmon signed a decree on further development of the Shashmaqom genre in Tajikistan.
We will recall that the Academy of Maqom now functions in Dushanbe. Established with support from the Aga Khan Music Initiative, the Academy of Maqom takes its name from the venerable tradition of classical or court music that spans the core Muslim world from Casablanca, Morocco, to Kashgar in western China.
Six maqoms or suites constitute the systematically organized repertory of Central Asian classical music known as Shashmaqom (six maqoms). In the Shashmaqom, instrumental pieces, lyrical song, contemplative poetry, and dance are all bound together in a vast yet integrated artistic conception of great refinement and profound beauty. The roots of Shashmaqom are linked most strongly with Samarkand and Bukhara – historically multicultural cities where performers and audiences have included Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Central Asian (Bukharan) Jews. Shashmaqom performers were typically bilingual in Uzbek – a Turkic language – and Tajik – an Iranian language – and sang poetic texts in both languages. During the Soviet era, however, the Shashmaqom was cloned into two distinct repertories – “Uzbek” Shashmaqom, with exclusively Uzbek-language poetic texts, and “Tajik” Shashmaqom, with exclusively Tajik language poetic texts. In both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the local version of the Shashmaqom came to serve as an important symbol of national cultural identity. This cultural symbolism has become still more significant in the post-Soviet era as the independent nations of Central Asia strive to define themselves socially and historically.
