Outside of the Classroom Part 3

Hello and welcome back to the third edition of “Outside of the Classroom.” Today our focus area will be Arabic and Indian culture. There’s no need for me to explain the concept of this blog post so we’ll just drive right into the first topic.

If you guys didn’t know, I happen to play a couple of instruments. For many years I have played the viola in an orchestral setting. As of right now I am still playing the viola in the orchestra at Converse but may soon transition to the violin within the next year but that is beyond the point. Being in an orchestra has allowed me to be introduced to a variety of symphonies and concertos from around the world. Every year at my high school we were required to audition for the All-State Orchestra. Through my audition excepts I was able to find one of the most beautiful symphonies called Scheherazade. Let me give you a brief history lesson about the story of Scheherazade. Her story is just one of the many from the book called The Arabian Nights or sometimes referred to as The Thousand and One Nights. The exact origin of the story is not quite clear because it is said that it has multiple influences from India, Iran, Iraq, and other surrounding countries. The synopsis of her tale is that there was a sultan named Shahryar who found out that his first wife was being unfaithful to him. So he killed her so he would she would no longer betray him. After that, he would marry a new girl every day and kill the previous one so there would be no risk of betrayal. By the time he reached to Scheherazade, he would have killed 1001 women. She knew that marrying him he would lead her to become another victim so before dawn cracked she began to tell the sultan a tale. The sultan was so interested in the story that he spared her life for 1001 days. By the end of her tale, the sultan managed to fall in love with her and they end up getting married and Scheherazade becomes the new queen. Now how does this relate to music? Well, the Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov brought the story to life in the form of music. Throughout the whole piece itself, you hear aspects of Middle Eastern-sounding solos throughout the whole orchestra. I know this a very lengthy explanation but it’s just an amazing example of how people use traditional literature and create another form of art with it.

Speaking of different forms presenting art, we are going to transition from an orchestra setting to a musical theater setting. I was never a big fan of musical theater when growing up, I actually didn’t know about them until high school. I know, I live under a rock! Well soon after I began to discover all these different musicals relating from Spongebob to American governmental figures. Today I will speak upon The Band’s Visit. The Band’s Visit is a 10-time Tony-winning stage musical by David Yazbek. The musical is based upon the journey of a band who ended in the wrong city for a day. I know I made it sound super basic and boring but trust me, there’s more to it. But, I am not here to explain what the musical is about, my job is to explain why I am even taking the time to introduce you all to this show. Well firstly, this musical is one of the few musicals whos cast are mostly from a minority group. I do not know where specifically the actors are from but they all consider themselves apart of the Middle Eastern area. To this day, it is still extremely rare to see a minority on stage in Broadway, so the fact that this show is mostly made of minorities it amazing. The second thing that makes this musical unique from the others is the orchestration. Most musicals will have this sort of soft classical feel or the typical upbeat styled music throughout. The Band’s Visit takes a different approach and actually use musical elements from the Middle East. We are able to hear chromaticism and syncopated rhythms all throughout the musical. Below I’ve embedded a short video that gives us snippets of the music heard throughout and actual footage from the live performance.

Lastly, I’ll briefly speak about Raja Kumari. She is an Indian-American singer-songwriter who fuses hip-hop and classic Indian styles into one. Before she started her solo career she worked with musicians like Fall out Boy, Lindsey Stirling, etc. As of right now she currently has two EPs out. Her first EP is called The Come Up, which debuted back in 2016. Her most recent EP, Bloodline debuted about a year ago. As of right now, she is not on tour but she is in the works of producing new music. Below I have linked my favorite song by her.