Women Oud Players

 

When I was an undergraduate, I was in a class where I was assigned an essay written by Sigmund Freud to read.  It was probably in a core class I took with Professor Bolkosky or a philosphy class I took withProfessor Mathews perhaps in 1973.  The essay was The Moses of Michelangelo written in 1914.  I remember that I was dreading reading it because I felt Marx and Freud were being shoved down our throat and into our brains by the philosophy and history departments.  Furthermore, the essay was like 24 pages long, I wasn’t enthused about reading a dense essay of that length that I expected was full of obtuse psychobabble.

I read it and I could not have been more wrong. 

It was an amazing essay that changed my view of Freud.  It was dense, but it was very interesting and opened my eyes to essay writing, art critique, and freed me to use the analytic skills I had developed as a mathematician in evaluating the arts and social and political issues.  I was amazed by his critique and how much the Father of Psychoanalysis gleaned in his study that involved looking at the statue and using his own mind and insights.   

The transforming nature of reading that essay at just the right time in my education certainly contributed to my current writing and blogging avocation.

Just this week, Facebook presented a photo I posted 7 years ago.  It is a photo of seven women.  They are all holding instruments:  six holding ouds and one with a violin.  It is black and white.  The women are nicely dressed.  They are outside.  The three in the front row are seated and other four are standing behind them.  The backdrop is a crude and very old wood and stucco style wall of a home or building used in humble construction for centuries. 

I reposted the photo and several musician friends wanted to know more about the photo.  So did I for that matter.  I invoked my inner Freud (not a pandoran box anyone should tamper with) and asked a variety of questions I wish I could glean by just studying the photo.  What is the background of the photo?  Where was it taken?  What was the ethnicities of these women?  Were they an ensemble?  Were they simply taking classes?  Who were the makers of the ouds the ladies were holding?  Armenian oud players always want to know

I did not know anything.  Judging from the looks of the ouds, they appeared to be Turkish vs Arabic style.  So, we can conclude that the photo was taken in Turkey.  Are the women Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Jewish, Kurd, or a mixture.  Ethnicity is close to impossible to surmise by simply gazing at the photo.  What is the time frame?  If I were an expert in fashion, I might have a chance here but the best I would do was narrow it down to 1920 to 1960.  If I were forced to narrow that 40-year span to 20, I would go with 1930 to 1950.

This week Ara Topouzian posted that the photo was from 1920 and taken in Turkey.  He went on to post, “I obtained from a musician when I was researching photos for Guardians of Music: A History of Armenian Music in Detroit and got a digital copy.” 

Ara’s post triggered the thought to seek out the lady that originally posted the photo.  Her name is Nemat Battah, a Jordanian performer and composer of Arab music now living in Finland.  I messaged her and introduced myself and asked about any background she might have on the photo.  She did not have much more but suggested I check her background photos as there were was some discussion there.  In 2014, she had posted,

what i found says that it is Women's Musical Association of Izmit. 1925 am not sure . But thats the only information i found

Later in the thread, Nemat posted a link to Pinterest for the photo.  The Pinterest page said it came from Twitter.  One Lütfü Türkkan, posted the photo there with the caption:  “Sene 1940.. İzmit'de Kadın Müzik Topluluğu.”  Basically, with the aid of Google Translate, this means, “Year 1940… Women’s Music Society of Izmit.”  Very cool.  Izmit is a town on the Sea of Marmara about 70 miles east of Istanbul.  I kind of like this.  It fits the dress, again as far as I can surmise.  Izmit had Armenian and Greek populations.  80,000 Armenians were killed or exiled during the Genocide.  Those that remain seem to be more of the hidden or crypto class of Armenians.  Some of the ladies in the photo could well Greek or Armenian

This photo hardly compares to Michelangelo’s Moses and our collective analysis is nowhere near as rich and insightful as Freuds.  Nemat and I ended our discussion with my observation:  “It is ok to have a little mystery about a few things here and there.”  She responded, “Exactly.”

 

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Here are some other photos of women oud players found in preparing this piece.

 

Hamiyet Yuceses (1915-1996),
celebrated Turkish nightclub singer
who was classically trained,
and who also played oud. 
oudmigrations

 

 

 

Mary Goshtigian, 1939, Fresno
Born in Western Armenia
Library of Congress

My friend Huda Asfour
Palestinian born in Lebanon
WAMU

 

Lastly, a favorite woman oudist, Negar Bouban, from Iran performing Chazar Mezrab Abu Ata by Hossein Alizadeh