Return to the remarkable 1976 Festival archive and consider what it means to hear, and care for, music from the past on its own terms.

Fifty years ago, London became the setting for the historic 1976 World of Islam Festival. One of its most distinctive features was the central place it gave to music, presenting musical traditions as an integral dimension of Islamic art and culture, despite music’s contested status in some strands of Islamic jurisprudence. The Festival explored these musical worlds in the concert hall and the museum alike. Leading musicians from Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Iraq and the Indian subcontinent performed at major London venues, while the pioneering ethnomusicologist Jean Jenkins was commissioned to travel across 21 countries to record musicians and collect instruments for the Festival’s Horniman Museum exhibition, Music in the World of Islam. Together, these projects introduced audiences to celebrated classical traditions as well as the richly varied music of everyday, communal and devotional life.

The concert series was featured in the BBC documentary The Sound of Islam, presented by none other than David Attenborough and Jenkins’ recordings were released as a six-LP collection, famously sampled by David Byrne and Brian Eno for their influential 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Yet much of her original field recordings, along with the concert recordings, have remained unheard in archives for decades.

In this listening session, Dr Stefan Williamson Fa will return to the sounds of the 1976 Festival, while placing them in their historical context. Drawing on his research in the Festival’s sound archives, he will share rare recordings and archival images that bring the musicians, their instruments and their musical traditions into focus. Rather than treating the archive simply as a record of a major cultural event, the session centres the people whose artistry made these recordings possible, their voices, repertoires, creative worlds and musical lives. Join us to listen afresh to this remarkable archive and to consider what it means to hear, and care for, music from the past on its own terms.

Please note that doors will close shortly before the advertised time so we request that you arrive 15 minutes before the start time.

About Dr Stefan Williamson Fa

Dr Stefan Williamson Fa is an anthropologist of sound, food and religion. He is Research and Outreach Associate at the Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, and the author of Sonic Relations: Community and Devotion in Turkey’s Eastern Borderlands.

About The Cambridge Festival of Islamic Arts

The Cambridge Festival of Islamic Arts runs from 19 to 29 November 2026, bringing performances, exhibitions, lectures, and workshops to Cambridge's historic colleges, museums, and cultural spaces. Open to everyone, the festival celebrates the beauty and diversity of Islamic arts, and, fifty years on from the landmark 1976 World of Islam Festival, carries that spirit into our own time. Find out more at cfia.co.uk (http://cfia.co.uk).

Description supplied by the event organiser.