UC Santa Barbara

“The Cello in Arab Music, 1920s–2020s: Egyptian Cultural Policy, Cultural Security, and Performer Perspectives” focuses on the historical and contemporary use of the cello in Arab music, using the instrument as a window into issues of heritage, cultural security, and individual, national, pan-national and diasporic identities. Part I focuses on the cello’s emergence in Arab music ensembles in Cairo in the late 1920s, including in the ensembles of superstar singers such as Umm Kulthum and Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhab. Part II focuses on three contentious moments in Egyptian musical history: 1. The First International Congress of Arab Music (1932); 2. The founding of the state-funded Arab music ensemble, Firqat al-Musiqa al-‘Arabiyya (1967); 3. The founding of two annual music festivals by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture (1992). I argue that the cello was initially perceived as a threat to Arab musical heritage by Egyptian elites and European scholars because of the musical and socio-political climates of 1932 and 1967. Since the 1990s, however, the cello has become “protected” and patronized by the Ministry of Culture and given unprecedented prominence in the annual, state-funded Arab Music Festival. This section explores the processes by which specific elements of a music tradition become securitized or “protected” by state-affiliated organizations. Using the cello as a case study, I examine how what was originally deemed a foreign intrusion that threatened the integrity and authenticity of Arab music has been transformed into a central element of that tradition.

Part III takes a transnational approach, centering the voices of five cellists from Egypt, Palestine, and Syria and using their experiences to document the cello’s role in Arab music ensembles in Egypt and in the United States. Drawing on interviews and lessons with these musicians, I prioritize issues of diasporic and national identity, performers’ lived experiences, and conceptualizations of technique. I define the instrumental idiom of the cello in Arab music ensembles by combining the perspectives of these five cellists with analysis of the cellists in Umm Kulthum’s legendary firqa (orchestra) and my own perspectives as a long-term cellist. While this study focuses primarily on the cello, I use the instrument as an avenue into cultural policy, heritagization, and the construction of Egyptian and pan-Arab national and cultural identities through the securitization of “Arab music.” This work thus seeks to contribute to scholarship on Arab music and cultural policy as well as scholarship on the indigenization of musical instruments.