Rabab

The Medieval Rabab – a Bowed String Instrument with an Arabic-Islamic Past and Present
International conference

5/6 November 2021

Organised by the Hochschule der Künste Bern HKB, Institute Interpretation, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)

Since 2019, the skin-covered bowed string instruments rabab and rebec have been a subject of investigation as part of a four-year interdisciplinary SNSF research project at the Hochschule der Künste Bern. The rabab and rebec both belonged among the most important bowed string instruments of the European Middle Ages and early Renaissance, while the rabab was also essential in the Arabic-Islamic region from the 9th century onwards. Furthermore, the rabāb remains a key element of Moroccan andalusi music today. During the conference, we will present the research results from the first part of our project (9th–13th centuries) and aim to contrast these with further research on the same and related topics from the fields of musicology, organology, ethnomusicology, performance practice, art history, music iconography, archaeology and cultural transfer in order to discuss them together. Selected papers will subsequently be published in book form (open access).