Book Presentation: ”La Pensée Musicale d'Al Farabi” by Ahmed Aydoun

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) and the Embassy of the Netherlands in Morocco are pleased to extend to you a warm invitation to the book launch of Ahmed Aydoun’s newest publication, "The Musical Thought of Al Farabi". The event is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15th, at 4:00 PM, and will be held at the NIMAR Booth, Hall C (N 23) (SIEL).

Synopsis:

Al Farabi, who died in 970, was not only this illustrious representative of the brilliant Arab-Muslim civilization, but also a universal spirit in the Middle Ages. We owe him numerous writings and philosophical commentaries, as well as essays in the disciplines known as the quadrivium, including in particular aspects of theoretical music.

To address this last aspect, Ahmed Aydoun's book is based, essentially, on the major Farabian work “kitab al moussiqa al kabir” (the great book of music).

The sometimes hermetic nature of numerous passages in this book requires the use of two complementary perspectives: the examination of theoretical developments developed by the ancients, and the resources of comparative musicology, while one of the theses defended by the author aims to underline the originality of Al Farabi who, even while following the continuity of the Greek philosophers, distinguished himself by linking strictly musical discourse to numerous fields including logic, mathematics, poetic metrics, chemistry and human physiology.

The importance of this approach derives from the generative process which explored all the possibilities offered to the arrangement and combination of the elements of the musical language. It is an approach in which Al-Farabi transcended the musical context of the time by adopting an entire theoretical system with a universal vocation.

Speaker Ahmed Aydoun:

Is a musicologist, composer, artistic director and economist. He holds a doctorate in economics and wrote his dissertation on Cultural Industries in Morocco (Rabat, 2012). He has been in charge of the Musical and Choreographic Department of the Ministry of Culture (1978-2005). He has also published six books and over three hundred analytic and critical articles, and has contributed to several radio and television programmes. He designed and directed most of the music festivals of the Ministry of Culture (1982-1995) and has been in charge of the artistic direction of the National Festival of Popular Arts (Marrakesh, 2003_2006) and the Mawazine Generation Competition (2006-2014).

Moderator Aziz Ifzaren:

Aziz Ifzaren is a researcher and professor of mathematics at the National School of Applied Sciences. He is passionate about music and the intrinsic relationship between music and mathematics.