Caravanserai shares Muslim culture through music

Culture | January 21st, 2016

By Jamie Hutchinson

The North Dakota Museum of Art is one of three organizations hosting this year’s Caravanserai with a group of Muslim-American musicians touring Grand Forks, teaching workshops and performing at various schools. Their stay will culminate in a public performance at Red River High School on Saturday.

Caravanserai is a cultural exchange program featuring a diverse array of Muslim musicians performing traditional Middle Eastern music, often with contemporary influences. The name Caravanserai comes from Middle Eastern inns where caravans would stop at night and trade stories.

“Every year they select different host sites and I’ve seen some of these in other communities and I just think it’s, in general, a very good program,” says Matthew Wallace, deputy director for the North Dakota Museum of Art. “Also, the timing is certainly ripe for it but I like the idea that whenever you can bring in somebody with different backgrounds, I think that’s only a plus for the community.”

This year’s tour is titled Caravanserai: American Voices and sees multi-instrumentalist Ronnie Malley and classically-trained opera singer Zeshan Bagewadi, who are both from Chicago, perform with a full band. Malley, who will be playing lute and guitar, didn’t get his start in music through Middle Eastern music. Rather, he got his start through bands such as Metallica, Iron Maiden and Guns N’ Roses. It was while learning “Sweet Child o’ Mine” as a kid he realized where Middle Eastern music and rock ‘n’ roll interweave.

“It was just something in the solo I thought sounded just like a Middle Eastern tune that my dad played, and lo and behold I discovered that there’s a lot of crossover in the use of musical scales and modes,” Malley says.

It’s these connections between Western and Eastern music that Malley would really like to present to audiences to show them how one culture can influence another.

“The music I’m actually going to be presenting though is actually a lot of original rock music with Sufi Islamic poetry and it’s heavily influenced by Sabbath, Rush and Soundgarden, if you will,” he says. The music will be a combination of all three rock bands with some classical Indian and Middle Eastern music.

After the Grand Forks performance, Caravanserai will spend the following week in Fergus Falls, Minn., with A Center for the Arts taking over hosting duties from the North Dakota Museum of Art. The musicians will play a similar public performance at A Center for the Arts on Saturday, Jan. 30, before heading to Traverse City, Mich., for their final stop of the tour.

This leg of the Caravanserai tour begins with Malley and Bagewadi, but a second leg in April will see Colorado hip-hop duo The Reminders playing all three cities. The Reminders have shared the stage with many popular hip-hop acts including Snoop Dogg, Nas, Mos Def and KRS-One.

“They’re really good hip-hop artists, and then in addition they have their DJ come with them and then they have two dancers that dance in full hijab,” Wallace says. “I think it’ll be a pretty cool draw.”

IF YOU GO:

Ronnie Malley and Zeshan Bagewadi

Saturday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m.

Red River High School, 2211 17th Ave. S., Grand Forks

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