If, as the works of John Cage suggest, there is “no such thing as silence,” then what are the markers that show us we are experiencing silence? - what are the performative cues during musical silence? - what are the auditory and visual bookends of silence in performance, i.e. what anticipates and…

How can we enhance inspiration in metric modal improvisation and subsequently, in modal composition?

In this research project Rohana analyzes and reflects on taqsīm recordings by two leading figures of ‘ūd playing who were pillars of modern Arabic music, namely the Egyptians Muḥammad al-Qaṣabjī (1898-1964) and Riyāḍ al-Sunbāṭī (1906-1981).

Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

On Sunday, April 23, 2023, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey, Special Chair for Central European Studies, gave a special lecture alongside the Practicum Musicae Orkest at the Cultuurhuis de Paulus in Oegstgeest.

Performances of solo keyboard repertoire can sound more or less polyphonic depending on the performer’s use of divergence in expression.

How can historically-informed performers step outside the confines of the work-concept?

Dina Ishak Bakhoum defended her thesis on 21 January 2021

Who were the main artists and producers who generated new forms of popular music? What was the music like that was produced by artists in particular urban settings? How were particular lifestyles articulated to identify new audiences and what does this reveal about the way popular music contributed…

'Audible locality' is the first thorough study on the cultural ramifications of recording technology on ethnic sensibility in Southeast Asia. Exploring chronologically the representation of Indonesia's regional culture through recording media, it recounts the Dutch East Indies colonial society's initial…

Research on papyri has provided new insights into the history of the origins of Islam. Petra Sijpesteijns’s book,'Shaping a Muslim State', is based on these ancient Arabic letters and documents. Her new research on a Viennese collection of untranslated papyri is expected to produce more discoveries.

Seger Kersbergen studied the Cabo Verdean nightlife in Rotterdam. He explains how their music describes their nightlife and daily lives.

ACPA Professor of Auditory Culture and Music Philosophy Marcel Cobussen will give a lecture at the Gaudeamus Academy Workshop Weekend. The GMW Academy is a prelude to the contemporary music festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek, taking place from 7 to 11 september in diverse venues within the center of Utr…

Artistic research has come of age, and with it the Orpheus Institute. Founded twenty years ago, the Institute’s purpose from the start has been to pursue research through the practice of musicians.

Improvisers in experimental music do not record their music in a conventional score, but in ever-changing 'tactile pathways'. This is the proposition put forward by researcher Christopher Williams. PhD defence 13 December.

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

From the mid-19th century until the 1970’s, the Middle East witnessed the presence of various European missionaries who played a fundamental role in the birth and the development of humanitarianism. Since these Christian missionaries were well integrated in the local Middle Eastern societies via their…

By examining the impact of Islam on the daily life of those living under its rule, the goal of this project is to understand the striking newness of Islamic society and its debt to the diverse cultures it superseded. Questions will be the extent, character, and ambition of Muslim state competency at…

In this dissertation the author digs into the constituent elements of River Plate tango in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann.

How have Muslims imagined the world before Muhammad? Stories about pre-Islamic times feature across all genres and periods of Arabic literature, and while many writers have derided the pre-Islamic past as disorderly paganism, others celebrate its memory as a time of Arab nobility and fine literature.…

Tactile Paths is an artistic research project that aims to expand and articulate the feedback between notation and improvisation in experimental music.

Since the end of the nineteenth century Arabic book designers have influenced the social and cultural situation in the Middle East with their work. Huda Smitshuijzen Abi-Farès has written the first global overview of this neglected field of science. PhD defence 10 January.

On the 20th of October Abdullah Alhatlani successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) launches the open online course Music & Society on Coursera to advance worldwide access to high-quality education. The course starts on January 9, 2017 and will be taught by Prof. dr. Marcel Cobussen and drs. Hafez Ismaili M’hamdi.

docARTES is a doctoral programme for performers and composers. It offers a unique environment for critical reflection on musical practice.

The thesis wishes to examine the pathways of thought underlying the creative act of music making and the performance practice of complex music from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Playing a musical instrument is generally considered to be a complex human behaviour involving the integration and coordination of a broad range of human functions such as perception, imagination, memory, information processing, emotion, communication, and dexterity.

Two events on Music and the Brain will be held in Leiden later this month.

The World of a Mid-Eighth-Century Egyptian Official

This research aims to address the connection between Sufism and modern Arabic Literature (specifically, Palestinian literature).

Music of Possibility is a personal account of what, for composer Richard Barrett, are the most consequential areas of twentieth- and twenty first-century musical innovation, and how, together with a web of technologies, cultures and politics, they have informed his creative practice.

My research focuses on theories of the sublime by the Berlin Enlightenment philosophers Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) and Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–79).

How did Fustat develop between 640 and 750 to become the capital of Egypt? At the time Egypt was a province of the Islamic empire - the caliphate - that had been started by the prophet Muhammad. Original sources used by Arabist Jelle Bruning give new insights into the city. PhD defence on 2 April.

Wordt het nog wat met de Arabische lente?

From Sunday 8 till Tuesday 17 January 2023, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic and cognitive…

From Sunday 11 till Tuesday 20 June 2023, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic and cognitive…

The Arab women are coming! That was Kim Ghattas’s message on 6 March in the 25th Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. It won’t be easy and it could take a long time, but they can do it. The Arab Springs have inspired them, and they’re not letting go of that.

Religious minorities and their languages in the emerging nation states of the Middle East (1920–1950)

This historical study argues that the Mandaean religion originated under Sasanid rule in the fifth century, not earlier as has been widely accepted. It analyzes primary sources in Syriac, Mandaic, and Arabic to clarify the early history of Mandaeism.

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

The “harpe organisée”, 1720-1840: Rediscovering the lost pedal techniques on harps with a single-action pedal mechanism, is the title of Maria Christina Cleary's PhD thesis. This is the first monographic study on harp pedal techniques, tracing the historical way to pedal on the early pedal harps with…

This Spring we relaunched our free online course The Importance and Power of Music in our Society.

This year, LUCIS adapted the programme of its popular annual Middle Eastern Culture Market into an evening version, featuring a lecture, book discussion, and music.

On February 8 the 443rd dies natalis will take place in the Pieterskerk in Leiden.