This beautiful and informative enhanced ebook-so comprehensive it had to be split into two volumes, ebook 1 and ebook 2-offers a detailed introduction to the musical heritage of Central Asia for readers and listeners worldwide. Music of Central Asia balances "insider" and "outsider" perspectives with contributions by 27 authors from 14 countries. This stunning electronic book allows readers the opportunity to deeply engage with source material through over 180 embedded audio and video, pop-up study questions, transliterations and translations of performed texts, and direct links to the companion website. The audio and video examples include transliterations and translations of the performed texts and a follow-along feature highlights the song lyrics in the text, as the audio samples play. This generously illustrated book is supplemented with boxes and sidebars, musician profiles, and an illustrated glossary of musical instruments, making it an indispensable resource for both general readers and specialists.
"The Music of Central Asia is an encylopedic page turner! This is essential reading for all performers, composers, ethnomusicologists, students, scholars and culturally engaged people everywhere. There has never before been one book that so expertly, vividly and deeply unites the past, present and potential future of an entire swath of the world's musical landscape."
David Harrington, Kronos Quartet
"The Music of Central Asia is like its subject: vast, variegated, resonant, and rich in musical traditions that have remained all too close to outsiders for centuries. The book is both authoritative and innovative, ringing with regional voices and dozens of well-chosen examples of cultural riches to be sampled and savored by both specialists and students."
Mark Slobin, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, Wesleyan University
