Sacred Knowledge : Schools or Revelation?

The articles in this book, written by outstanding scholars, together build a theory, concept and practical model of a significant training system of the oral musical tradition of the Turkic speaking world. The culture under discussion, spreading from south Siberia to the Mediterranean, comprises the art and music of numerous different ethnicities. Much music within this vast area is based on the phenomenon of oral transmission and the distinctive settings of the master-apprentice relationship. Today, at a time of globalisation and the concomitant loss of cultural identity for many countries, research and documentation on performance in oral learning traditions can help to identify key issues of performance phenomena and allow a better understanding of the vast and increasingly important Turkic speaking world to emerge. It was the main subject of the International Workshop and the Conference held in 2006 under the auspices of the School of Oriental and African studies, University of London, initiated and organised by Dr Razia Sultanova during her time there.