This week, justArts spoke with Prof. Judith Eissenberg (MUS), the director of MusicUnitesUs, a program that brought Azerbaijani vocalist Fargana Qasimova to the University for an intercultural residency. 

justArts: Can you tell us a little about MusicUnitesUs?

Judith Eissenberg: It’s a program I started in 2003, and its purpose is to deepen our understanding and appreciation of Other, with a capital “O,” cultures. And of course, for every person, the other is a different set of, you know, peoples. I started it in reaction, a personal reaction, to the events of 9/11. I was struck with a quote that is attributed to Ghandi, something like this: “the roots of violence are found in injustice.” 

And my confusion and fear and the mix of feelings that happened when 9/11 happened, that helped focus what I wanted to do, the action, because it felt like I needed to act. What that quote gave me was the desire to find out where the people lived that did this and what our own role was in what happened. So I wanted to meet. I wanted to understand what happened, I wanted to enlarge the screen so I could understand who those people were if I could. I wanted to understand where those people came from, what their lives are like and where we’ve met before. Because we’ve been there, we’re part of this history, so I won’t dwell on that too much. But ... it was a curiosity and desire to see the full picture. And I believe as a musician—that’s what I am, a performer of the western classical tradition—I believe that music can hold so much information and so much inspiration and can speak to history, can speak to cultural values and can kind of soften our approach to each other. Most of all, I think music asks us to listen and I think when something happens we don’t understand, we need to quiet ourselves a little bit to be able to listen fully and deeply, and that’s how we’ll have a better understanding of what happened, whether its personal or some large event.

JA: What do you look for when deciding who to bring in for a MusicUnitesUs intercultural residency?

JE: This program happens once every semester for about a week. We bring in musicians who represent some local world tradition and that, for me, because we have so much Western here—will be a non-Western, which is pretty much a huge gambit of things. Those musicians need to be deeply immersed in their own cultural tradition and also interested in expanding it, so it’s not something based in the past, but it’s living today, speaking to values present today to them. They also need to be able to talk about music and get at discussions with our students and have curiosity of their own. I think that I’m interested in music from people from conflict areas … We have a wonderful relationship with the Aga Khan Music Initiative, who are particularly interested in developing and encouraging musicians from different parts of the Muslim world. Without their help, we would never be able to bring every spring the quality of musicians that we bring, such as Fargana Qasimova and her musicians; Fargana being one of the best, if not the best, female Mugham singer in Azerbaijan. Anyway, so they have to be interested in crossing boundaries and talking with us and sharing with us. I think Fargana herself is interested in expanding her own capacity to bring her tradition to the western stage, which can be a very challenging thing.

JA: Who’s in charge of the decision for bringing in artists-in-residence?  

JE: Ultimately I make that decision, but I’ve had the pleasure of [working with] [Prof.] Fernando Rosenberg [HISP]. He came to me and said, “I want to have tango.” And I said ‘Well, who do you want?’ and he said “Pablo Ziegler; he’s the best classical tango player from Argentina.” And I said, “Great, I always love to have dance if possible. Well, I know someone who can do tango.” And he said to me, “It has to be the very best. I insist that, if it’s going to have that kind of music.” I agree. We really need to understand the depths of a culture when we bring it, so we were able to find two fantastic international stars when they came for their residency. 

JA: How did you choose Fargana Qasimova and her ensemble specifically? 

JE: In 2010, Ted Levin, who was the curator and director for the tours that the Aga Khan Music Initiative brings to the U.S., came to me and said, “I have this terrific group I want to bring. Alim Qasimov, the New York Times says about him, is the top vocalist in the world living today of any genre of any tradition. I’m talking about opera, pop, rock, anything. He’s coming with the most virtuosic musicians, and he’s bringing his daughter.” And I said, “Is that usual? This is very, an innovation of Alim’s that he would invite his daughter onto stage to sing Mugham. Not only did he break his own, extend his own tradition by his style, which is very passionate and very innovative, but being on stage with his daughter and her being involved with the music making was a new moment in history.” 

But the whole time they were here in 2010, she said very little—she’s a disciple of her father, very respectful. When they sang it was very much a duo but any kind of conversation, only a word or two. But when she did speak, we knew we were interested and I said to Ted that if she could ever come by herself, it’s now the beginning of her solo international career, and the AKMI said, “Well this is an option, do you want it?” And I said of course we want it, please come, so we had her come and it was a journey. It was exciting, thrilling, we all learned how to listen more deeply. In all the classes she went to, not only did she seem to go farther with her singing than the last class, but there was not a subject she wouldn’t address in a deep and serious and human, warm way. It was so generous, the whole visit. I asked her at one point, “When you came with your dad, he was also generous and sang magnificently but he had something saved for the concert. But I’m worried about you, because you seem to go more deeply and more passionately and farther than the last time you sang. Am I right about that?” And she said, “My father has done his experimentation. I’m beginning my experimentation; I don’t want to waste my time. Every time I get a chance to sing, I want to see what journey, what path I can go.” So this concert Saturday night, I didn’t know how Slosberg could contain it. It was so magnificent. This music is of course musical virtuosity, but it’s a spiritual journey. It’s this connection from who we are as humans to the divine, and she’s kind of the way we get there. 

JA: What do you think Qasimova brought to the Brandeis community during her residency?

JE: She’s a great virtuoso, a great artist, deeply trained in her tradition, but what she brought was a generosity of the spirit. That is priceless, and it’s a model for us. What she was feeling inside she was sharing with us. She was sharing her most intimate connections, which is a strange thing to say when you’re on stage performing and it takes a special person to be able to do that with honesty and she did it and you could feel it.