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Musical Acculturation in Iran

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Brian Klitz  and
Norma Cherlin
Brian Klitz
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Norma Cherlin
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Extract

Acculturation has been accomplished traditionally when a society has absorbed foreign elements originally superimposed by invasion or acquired through excursions and study in other countries. These traditional means have been supplemented more recently by modern forms of communication and rapid travel, which tend to aggravate the natural imbalance of acculturation and to raise the specter of a cultural imperialism attended by a decline in quality or a reduction in number of indigenous cultural undertakings.

In Iran, with respect to musical acculturation, this hazard has been recognized for some time. For instance, Tehran's Conservatory for National Music was formally established by the Ministry of Culture and Art in 1949 with the specific objectives of systematically restoring national music and reviving the original Iranian instruments, and, in 1968, a High Commission of Culture and Art was formed to consider, among other matters, the question of acculturation.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Autumn 1971 , pp. 157 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1971

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Footnotes

This article is part of a larger study being conducted under the Auspices of The University of Connecticut's Institute of International and Intercultural Studies.

References

Notes

1. “A Brief History of the Conservatory” (trans. Taraz, M.) (Tehran: Conservatory for Traditional Music, undated and untitled one-page mimeograph)Google Scholar. Mr. Taraz“s translations are unpublished drafts done specifically for this study.

2. Cultural Policy of Iran (trans. Taraz, M.) (Tehran, 1969?).Google Scholar

3. Ibid., Preface.

4. Ibid., Chapter VII.

5. One such conference is described in “A Discussion and Review of Cultural Programs and Heritage,” Ferdausi (January 13, 1969), p. 105 (trans. M. Taraz).

6. From a report entitled “Réunion sur la Politique Culturelle” (a UNESCO-sponsored meeting hosted by Iran in May, 1970, and attended by representatives from Cameroon, France, India, Japan, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Turkey).

7. See Danielou, Alain “Establishment of the Distinction Between the Main Families of Music According to the Different Fundamental Systems,” in Archer, William K. ed., The Preservation of Traditional Forms of the Learned and Popular Music of the Orient and the Occident (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1964), pp. 132-40.Google Scholar

8. For a more complete discussion of classical Persian music, see Zonis, Ella “Contemporary Art Music in Persia,” Musical Quarterly, LI (October, 1965), pp. 636-48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or “Classical Persian Music Today” by the same author in Yar-Shater, Ehsan ed., Iran Faces the Seventies (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), p. 365ff.Google Scholar

9. Ali-Naghi Vaziri, “Notation: Means for the Preservation or Destruction of Music Traditionally Not Notated,” in Archer, op. cit., p. 255.

10. The orchestra's repertoire is made up mostly of standard Western classical and romantic fare, and a few of the less adventuresome contemporary works.

11. Each of the Schools of the University of Tehran is an independent administrative unit, which effectively prevents a student (because of scheduling problems) from taking courses outside the School in which he enrolls. The American concept of a liberal arts education does not exist.

12. Letter from Brian Klitz, Fulbright Consultant in Music, to Dr. Mohammad Moghadam, Vice Chancellor of Tehran University, February 12, 1968.

13. These programs are supervised by Dr. Sā˓īd Khadīrī, who graduated from Tehran's (Western) Conservatory in 1953 and continued his studies in education and music in Germany, where he received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1963. His appointment to the University of Tehran's Faculty of Education in 1967 marks the official entry of Music Education in the field of higher education in Iran. Alone in his department at the University of Tehran, he has been able to hire a three-member teaching staff for the televised programs. All of his young teachers have been affiliated with the Conservatory, either as student or teacher, and two of the three have studied music abroad, so the instructional staff leans musically toward the West, an inclination apparent in programming.

14. National Television of Iran's Music Workshop for Children and Young Adolescents (trans. Taraz, M.) (Tehran, no date).Google Scholar

15. Ibid.

16. An undertaking of this dimension would not be possible without considerable financial and ideological support having been elicited from official circles by enterprising young scholars like American-educated Hormoz Farhat, composer-ethnomusicologist formerly on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, and a leading organizer of the Festival.

17. Marius Schneider, “Basic Principles: the Variation, Orient-Occident,” in Archer, op. cit., pp. 236-39.

18. Amin Banani, “The Role of the Mass Media,” in Yar-Shater, op. cit., p. 321ff.

19. “Réunion…,” op. cit.