Mission Statement
The Syrian Music Preservation Initiative promotes and celebrates the diverse ethnic and regional musical traditions of Syria through preservation, innovation, research, and education. Its activities include music and dance performances, classes, workshops, and seminars, as well as digital resources and recordings.
Description
The Syrian Music Preservation Initiative is dedicated to preserving and reinvigorating the diverse ethnic and regional music traditions of Syria. Our performances promote the musical heritage of this region by presenting older works that are less known to the greater public as well as supporting contemporary exploration of the traditional forms by commissioning composers from Syria and the diaspora. In this way, we celebrate the past, present and future of Syrian music.
We strive to preserve the Syrian compositional practices by researching their history and context, translating lyrics, providing transcriptions, documenting our performances, and most importantly, by making our digital resources accessible to artists, scholars and communities worldwide.
With our work on performance and preservation, we are building a community of music lovers, scholars and historians to help support our final goal: education. The performing arm of SMPI, Takht al-Nagham, is made up of both Syrian and non-Syrian performers and invites soloists and composers from across the globe to support all three pillars of the organization. Through workshops, seminars, lectures and performance about musical traditions and historical context, we hope to grow a multi-generational, global community by making our educational, archival and performance resources all available digitally.
