Music of Central Asia Great singers form a venerable tradition in Central Asia, where a cult of the voice both ancient and contemporary casts vocalists as popular cultural heroes. Mystical, Sufi-inspired art songs, dramatic epic recitative, and ecstatic lyricism all represent elements of Central Asia’s rich musical palette. Music in Central Asia spans two great axes of Eurasian civilization, the nomadic and the sedentary, which have existed for millennia in an intricate cultural and commercial symbiosis. Each represents a fundamentally different pattern of culture and is linked to distinctive musical instruments, performance practices, and repertories. In Central Asia, musicians are more than entertainers. Traditionally, music has served to reinforce social and moral values, and musicians have provided models of exemplary leadership. Whether bringing listeners closer to God, sustaining cultural memory through epic tales, or strengthening the bonds of community through festivity and celebration, musicians have played a vital role in Central Asian social life. Recognition of this important role led His Highness the Aga Khan to establish the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia (AKMICA). The Music Initiative helps preserve Central Asia’s endangered musical heritage by ensuring its transmission to a new generation of artists and audiences, both inside the region and beyond its borders. AKMICA supports a group of exceptional musical tradition-bearers who are revitalising important musical repertories throughout Central Asia by transmitting their traditions to students. It also supports a worldwide music touring programme and disseminates Central Asian music through a variety of media projects including an audio and video anthology co-produced with the Smithsonian Institution. The Initiate’s creative partnership with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project began in 2000 and has since resulted in festivals, concert tours, recordings and innovative collaborations. It has recently been extended to the development of multimedia programmes for a new “Museum Initiative”, under which works of visual art are displayed together with traditions of oral literature and world music through performances, exhibitions and educational events in some of the world’s leading museums.   2007 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR: OCTOBER 12 – NOVEMBER 9, 2007 The tour—presented and curated by the Aga Khan Music Initiative in Central Asia—features three groups of performers: Alim and Fergana Qasimov, Badakhshan Ensemble and Bardic Divas. Seventeen musicians are going on tour in 11 North American cities beginning October 12, 2007. The tour, “Spiritual Sounds of Central Asia: Nomads, Mystics, and Troubadours,” will provide North American audiences with a rare opportunity to hear music from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Qaraqalpakstan (an autonomous region in Uzbekistan). With the release of "Alim and Fargana Qasimov", the Badakhshan Ensemble" and "Bardic Divas", six volumes of a ten-part series created in collabor-ation with the Smithsonian Institution are now available.