Tarik and Julia Banzi

While the historical record is rich with mention of women Andalusian musicians of the 9th-13th centuries CE, there is a notable scholarly void documenting the existence and significance of Andalusian women’s ensembles during the seven centuries that followed. What became of these female musicians and their traditions?

The classical Andalusian musical repertoire is thought to have descended directly from the courtly music of Islamic Spain (711-1492 AD). It is considered by many scholars to be one of the longest continuous traditions of art music in the world. With few exceptions scholarly literature on Andalusian music focuses exclusively on the male version of the tradition. And yet, women musicians are connected to the very "origins" of Andalusian music, the search for which has been the central concern of much of the scholarship related to Andalusian music. Did they cease to exist? Were they collectively forgotten or simply deemed unworthy of remembrance?

This presentation explores how both recent and older Iberian memories continue to influence the dynamics of collective assembly; in this case gender-separated women’s Andalusian events involving music. It documents the phenomenon of female ensembles and explores factors that have contributed to their persistence over the centuries. Based on historical and ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco that included interviews with dozens of ensemble musicians, I explore the special status that independent women’ ensembles hold in Moroccan society, the intersections of gender and music tradition, and what the presence of these ensembles suggests about broader socio-political and religious arrangements in Islamic Morocco. The existence of women’s musical traditions, previously undocumented by Arab and Western scholars, can lead us to reconceptualize intersections of history, memory, music, religion, gender and identity.