Weimar reconstruction aid in Afghanistan
The Weimar University of Music wants to support the music department at Kabul University in setting up structures, curricula and so on. Joint research programs with workshops, conferences and symposia as well as the reconstruction of the archive for Afghan music in Kabul are also being considered.
In the presence of representatives of the German Embassy in Kabul, an agreement was signed by the Chancellor of the Weimar University of Music, Christine Gurk, and the Chancellor of Kabul University, Habibullah Habib. For three years now, the Safar project of the study profile at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena has been facilitating an exchange between Afghan and German musicians and academics.
The first points of the new agreement are already being put into practice: various workshops and an academic symposium are currently being held at Kabul University. The handover of the archive and a joint concert by German and Afghan musicians are also planned.
In a first joint remote seminar, an exchange between students from both universities will also take place until May 2015 using a specially designed e-learning platform. In addition to an insight into the diversity of Afghan music cultures, soft skills in the field of transcultural music research will be taught primarily through the collective development of papers and presentations by students from Weimar and Kabul.
The Transcultural Music Studies program at the Institute of Musicology Weimar-Jena, headed by Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, cooperates closely with various partners in Afghanistan in the Safar project. The aim of the joint work is to revitalize traditional Afghan music cultures and strengthen musical civil society. The project is fully funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.
