1932MUSCON: Beyond 1932: Rethinking Musical Modernity in the Middle East and North Africa

In 1932, Cairo hosted the largest gathering of musicians and musicologists the post-Ottoman world had ever seen—and the music world has largely stopped thinking about it since. The 1932 Cairo Arab Music Congress is typically remembered as the moment Arab musical tradition ended and a compromised, Western-influenced modernity began. This project argues that view is incomplete. By examining the Congress’s full legacy—its recordings, debates, and the institutions it set in motion across the Middle East and North Africa—the research asks what the event actually started, not just what it ended. The gap is significant: music is rarely treated as a serious lens for understanding postcolonial modernity in the region. If successful, the project could reshape how scholars and cultural institutions think about musical change, tradition, and innovation in the MENA region. There is no immediate practical application. This is fundamental, curiosity-driven research into cultural history. But a deeper understanding of how musical modernity unfolded—beyond simple narratives of loss or imitation—could eventually inform how cultural heritage institutions, archives, and music education programmes approach non-Western traditions.