We teach music workshops from all Middle Eastern traditions to students from all over the world. The Maqamat Music Center (MMC) in Tzfat is an umbrella organization that has been established in Tzfat as a premier platform, showcase and educational resource for the classical, folk and sacred music traditions of the Middle East, the music of the Maqam, and their influence on the community soul music at the heart of contemporary Israeli cultural life. The Holy Land is a unique crossroads of this widespread musical culture with deep historical, geographic and spiritual dimensions. Emerging from this is an authentic genre of Israeli World Music which bridges Eastern Mediterranean, Levantine, North African, Andalusian, Arabic, Ottoman, Persian, Central Asian and Jewish musical traditions and scenes. The borders of this vast territory touch influences ranging from Spanish Flamenco and West African groove to European art music, Klezmer, Gypsy, Eurasian and Indian sub-continent musical traditions. The music of the Maqam is a modern-day analog to the ancient Silk Road which channeled goods, people and culture between the deep heart of Central Asia and the Mediterranean, Europe and North Africa. The Maqamat Music Center and Maqamat Academy of Eastern Music provide gateways for education, creative dialog, outreach, performance, participation and community building for national-level conservatory teachers and students, professional players, semi-professional and community-based musicians and the music-loving public. The Maqamat Academy offers a full-time University-level course of study for serious conservatory students leading to a private diploma in Oriental music performance. The MMC is establishing a parallel track — a “ladder” (Hebrew “sulam") — open to the public, of workshops, seminars, performances and special events. Our inspiration is that the “maqam” — the musical scale of Eastern music (for which Hebrew also uses the word “sulam” or ladder) — is not just a technical musical concept. Rather it is an integrated holistic model of music as a core element of culture and place (“makom" in Hebrew). Our slogan, to paraphrase Yaacov in the Torah story of Jacob’s Ladder ("Sulam Yaacov"), could be “Mah norah ha-maqam ha zeh?"
