Midwest Mahjar: The Recorded Sounds of the Arabic-Speaking Diaspora in the United States at 78 RPM

Fedora “Fadwa” Kurban Fedora "Fadwa" Kurban, 4 October 1935, Madison Eagle . Courtesy of newspapers.com Maloof Records has fascinated 78 rpm record collectors for decades. Ethnomusicologist Richard K. Spottswood painstakingly documented much of what had been recorded on Alexander Maloof’s label and we know that some of the last recordings on the Maloof Record De Luxe Orientale phonograph label are credited to Mme. Fadwa Kurban. Like other musicians who emigrated from or are descendants of those who left Greater Syria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we know very little about Fadwa Kurban, her connections to Alexander Maloof,  or her music - until now. Fedora “Fadwa” Kurban was one of seven children born to Navum Kurban and Saada Kurban on 11 May 1898 in either the coastal city of Acre, Palestine (now Israel) or Aqraba, Syria. She started singing when she turned five but her father, Navum, a professor at the Syrian Protes...