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

  The Birth of Philly's Middle Eastern Music Scene: Ed Tayoun and His Arabian Orchestra James and Edmond Tayoun, 1946. Courtesy of Ancestry.com Despite its relative proximity to Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s Little Syria, Philadelphia’s Syrian and Lebanese communities were much smaller and its music scene less recognized and less celebrated. Nevertheless, approximately 16,300 Syirans lived in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1907. More specifically, 700 Syrians lived in Philadelphia, 600 settled in Wilkes Barre, and 2300 resided in Pittsburgh at the same time. Its population notwithstanding, Philadelphia had one of the oldest Syrian communities in the United States.  Historians Linda K. Jacobs and Sarah M.A. Gualtieri have documented the presence of merchants, entertainers, and lecturers who travelled to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and remained in the city after the fair. Immigrants from Greater Syria founded Saint Maron Church by 1892, if not a few years earlie...

  Mitri el-Murr: An Antiochian Orthodox Cantor Visits the United States Young Mitri-el Murr. Courtesy of Jack Rabah. Antiochian Orthodox priest and cantors churned out more than their share of 78 rpm discs from the 1920s to the 1950s. These included compositions and/or performances by Rev. Agapios Golam , Metropolitan Germanos Chehade , Archbishop Samuel David , and Rev. Ilyas T. Kurban . Arguably the most commercially successful of these was Metropolitan Germanos Chehade, the defiant archbishop known widely for his musical talent and one of Baidaphon’s leading religious singers. Mitri el-Murr or “Mitri eff. El-Mourr” stood out as arguably one of the most prolific composers and vocalists to headline on Baidaphon and record in the Byzantine tradition. Long the focus of students and scholars of Greek, Arabic, and Byzantine chant, scholars debate his legacy, the originality of his compositions, and the ways to best reproduce his work as he intended. Nevertheless, his 78 rpm recording...