HEARTH Summit Kuwait – Maqām Festival

Workshop • Dialogue • Concert

Seeking the Spirit of the Maqām

An Introductory Workshop to the Modal Music of Western Asia and Its Spiritual & Healing Virtues

A program thoughtfully selected and curated by Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad.

Maqām Festival at the Hearth Summit, Kuwait
As part of The Wellbeing Project, in collaboration with en.v
American University of Kuwait (AUK)

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Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad

MD and PhD in Musicology, currently Senior Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad (PhD in Musicology and MD) is the Dean of the Faculty of Music and Musicology at the Université Antonine - UA (Lebanon), and Senior Professor of Musicology, Neuropsychology of Music and Music Therapy, co-responsible for the Music-Health axis at the Collegium Musicæ, Sorbonne Université (Paris). He is also the scientific and artistic director of the Maqām Festival.

Friday • 05/12 — 12:15 pm
Maqām Music for Healing
Talk by Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad (~15 min)

Friday • 05/12 — 3:30 – 6:00 pm
Seeking the Spirit of the Maqām: An Interactive Exploration of the Modal Music
Workshop with the Maqām Festival Ensemble (~2h30min)

Saturday • 06/12 —7:50 – 8:10 pm
Closing: Maqām Music Concert
By Maqām Festival Ensemble — approx. 20 min

Nidaa Abou Mrad (conducting & violin)
Rafka Rizk (singing & riq)
Ghassan Sahhab (qānūn)

A Common Modal Melodic System

The musical traditions of West Asia, North Africa and Medieval Europe are based on a common modal melodic system. The maqām mode of a traditional musical work provides the melodic alphabet and the typical formulas from which the phrasing is elaborated, at the same time as it colors the emotions conveyed, inducing ecstasy.

If these great traditions converge on the level of this common melodic system, similar to the trunk of a very old tree, their cultural diversity is expressed by the traces that the prosody of the sung languages and the ritual and choreographic gestures, specific to the contextual cultures, leave in their rhythm, thus generating a multitude of traditional musical branches.

The Artistic Tradition of the Mašriq & Its Mystical Dimension

The mystical dimension of this music is underlined by the etymology of the word maqām (degree) borrowed from Sufism and its maqāmāt, ascetic gradations generating aḥwāl, ecstatic states of divine closeness. This illumination is combined with a healing of the soul and the body, as witnessed by the chronicles of the Arab hospitals where sedative music therapy was practiced, as well as an anonymous Arabic musical treatise of the 16th century that teaches the art of healing various pathologies through the ethos (emotional color) of maqām and its cosmological inscription (elemental and humoral) which induce a ṭarab sedative ecstasy or a ṭarab cathartic trance.

HEARTH Summit’s themes — Intergenerational Healing, Ecological Belonging, and Art for Social Change

Our workshop, “Seeking the Spirit of the Maqām,” draws on a shared modal system that connects the musical traditions of West Asia, North Africa, and Medieval Europe. It highlights how reconnecting individuals and communities with their traditional cultural foundations can serve as both a preventative and therapeutic path to deep well-being — a principle deeply aligned with Intergenerational Healing.

The program also engages the theme of Ecological Belonging, inviting participants to rediscover the sonic and cultural relationships shaped by their environment — the kind of listening that restores meaning, identity, and rootedness.

Finally, with Art for Social Change, the Maqām tradition offers a powerful model for societal transformation: a return to endogenous artistic, aesthetic, and spiritual resources that can inspire renewal within communities.

Maqām Festival - Multaqā Al-Mūsīqā Al-Maqāmiyya

We celebrate modal/maqām musical traditions of West Asia, North Africa and Europe. Merging research, transmission and performance, we aim to ensure that maqām music (a cornerstone of Arab heritage) can be received in a relevant and moving way by a large contemporary audience.

Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad, Scientific & Artistic Director Dahlia Rashad, founder

Maqām Festival Ensemble

Nidaa Abou Mrad (conducting & violin)

Professor Nidaa Abou Mrad (PhD in Musicology and MD) is the Dean of the Faculty of Music and Musicology at the Antonine University (Lebanon), and Senior Professor of Musicology, Neuropsychology of Music and Music Therapy, co-responsible for the Music-Health axis at the Collegium Musicæ, Sorbonne Université (Paris). He won the Lebanese National Council for Research Annual Research Excellence Award in 2017, for his theory on the Modal Semiotics. As a violin player and a composer, with twenty audio CDs, he is specialized in the art Maqām music Arabic tradition of the Mašriq. He is also the scientific and artistic director of the Maqām Festival.

Rafka Rizk (singing & riq)

Holding a master’s degree in music and musicology from Antonine University, teaches the vocal music tradition of the Nahḍa era at the Faculty of Music and Musicology of Antonine University, being one of the few depositaries of this art in Lebanon. She is also an active chanter and singer in the Maqām Festival Ensemble.

Ghassan Sahhab (qānūn)

PhD in Ethnomusicology from Paris-Nanterre Université, is one of the very few instrumentalists in the Arab world to cultivate at a higher level the traditional art of playing qānūn according to the Egyptian Nahḍa tradition, recording CDs and giving live performances in reputable theatres. He is co-founder and musical director of Me‘zaf Initiative (Lebanon) and teaches musicology and qānūn at the Faculty of Music and Musicology of Antonine University. He is also a qānūn player in the Maqām Festival Ensemble.

en.v is a Kuwait-based, interdisciplinary organization dedicated to fostering a more compassionate, connected, and resilient society. Working with a broad network of community groups, institutions, and stakeholders, en.v develops programs and participatory processes that promote informed empathy, critical engagement, and inclusive, equitable approaches to social transformation.

The Wellbeing Project is a global non-profit initiative focused on advancing inner wellbeing for changemakers and the organizations that support them. Co-created with leading social-impact institutions, the project fosters research, partnerships, and community-building efforts that help embed wellbeing as a foundational element of social change.

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Maqām Festival | مُلْتَقَى المُوسِيقَى المَقامِيَّة
P.O. Box 288
Postal Code 12311 Dokki
Giza, Egypt

Tel./whatsapp: +20 109 0379090
info@maqamfestival.com
www.maqamfestival.com