Egyptian Violinists and the Negotiation of In-Betweenness
[Thesis]
Lillie Sarah Gordon
Marcus, Scott L.
University of California, Santa Barbara
2014
366
Committee members: Cooley, Timothy J.; Reynolds, Dwight F.
Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-321-34943-6
Ph.D.
Music
University of California, Santa Barbara
2014
Over the past 150 years, the European violin has grown from a new import to a fundamental fixture in the Arab music of Egypt. Due to the violin's history, physical attributes, and symbolic importance, violinists regularly work between categories often set in opposition, especially Western classical and Arab musics. In this dissertation, I argue that it is this very in-betweenness that makes the violin a powerful tool for Egyptian violinists and composers. Through a series of biographies organized historically, I show how violinists have infused the instrument with different clusters of meaning, performing complex senses of identity and complicating musical categories in the process.
Cultural anthropology; Music; Middle Eastern Studies
Social sciences;Communication and the arts;Arab music;Egypt;Ethnomusicology;In-betweenness;Postcolonial;Violin