WOMUSIRAN: Women and Western Art Music in Iran

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WOMUSIRAN investigates links between gender, Islam, migration and cultural appropriation, through the prism of Western art music in Iran. It traces the fate of female composers, teachers, scholars and practitioners, whose work and careers fell victim to the 1979 Revolution and to the subsequent tightened controls on women and music-making. The project presents a bottom-up history of the role of those pioneering female musicians in shaping Iran's cultural policies, impacting post-1979 diasporic communities, and contributing to present-day possibilities for women in Iran's re-emergent musical and cultural life. WOMUSIRAN resonates stronglywith the current situation in Afghanistan.The project's objectives are to undertake a critical and contextual assessment of primary and secondary sources, to construct an oral history of key female musicians in Iran and diasporic communities, and to conduct comparative and contextual assessment of works by the case-study musicians. A further objective will be to locate these case studies within the frame of Intangible Cultural Heritage. These objectives will be achieved through an interdisciplinary methodology that draws on (ethno-)musicology, migration, gender and feminist studies, area studies and human rights, drawing on interviews, testimonies and archival material, alongside textual and musical assessment.The project will be carried out at the world-leading Centre for Iranian Studies at the University of Toronto (outgoing phase) and at the Music Department of King's College, London (return phase), with a two-month secondment at Silkroad (Boston) and a six-month placement at the Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris). The outcome will be intersectoral, breaking down boundaries between academics and practitioners, enabling diasporic musicians to reconnect with their roots, giving a voice to a new generation of female and LGBTQ+ musicians, and creating channels of communication between those in Iran and the diaspora.