Virginia Tech community performs Arabic music

So, I'm an ethnomusicologist, and my specialty is Arabic music specifically, so that's defined as music from places where they speak Arabic. Itraab started in 2014. It started in conjunction with the Moss Art Center project called the Islamic Worlds Festival. We benefit a lot from the presence of a lot of students, undergraduate and graduate students from Arab countries and from Iran, too. And these folks bring a lot of cultural knowledge. We have a lot of discussion about what the words to the song means and the metaphoric meaning of different phrases. And I think that everyone in the group benefits from having this space of dialogue between people from different backgrounds and cultures. This group is very diverse. I think it's more diverse than many people think. If someone doesn't know the nationality of people, it's really difficult to guess because we don't perform English music, English language. So people are from the US, people original from Europe, from South Asia, from like Africa or South America. Everywhere. I'd say my favorite part of being a part of Itraab is really the community part of it and getting to know and work with so many people of diverse musical backgrounds and seeing all of that interwoven with this Arabic music that's very familiar to me as someone of Egyptian heritage. It's such a nice way to kind of reconnect with my culture a little bit. I think that it's a unique opportunity, especially for students who come from the cultures that we're representing here. And I personally, this is an ongoing performance opportunity and opportunity to teach. It's an opportunity that I am very lucky to be able to continue from year to year.