MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now let's hear about a Norwegian composer who takes inspiration from medieval Spain, specifically the region of Al-Andalus. That's where for eight centuries, stretching from the year 711 to 1492, Christians and Jews and Muslims lived in harmony. Out of that time and place came advances in math, science, art, music, advances that influenced the rest of Europe. The artist is Jon Balke. He's just released his second album drawn from those influences, and Betto Arcos has his story.
BETTO ARCOS, BYLINE: Jon Balke first learned about Al-Andalus when he was commissioned to write music by a Moroccan promoter to celebrate his venue's 15th anniversary.
JON BALKE: And this was how I stumbled upon the Gharnati music, which is the Andalusian music that existed in 1400 in Spain and was driven out and then continued to exist in North Africa.
(SOUNDBITE OF YUVAL AEIVGI'S "TOSHIA TAZRI")
ARCOS: Al-Andalus was one of the most culturally rich areas of Europe. It was ruled by Muslims interested in fostering intellectual and social exchange. But the Christian kingdoms to the north attacked repeatedly, and in 1492 the Spanish crown reclaimed the last vestiges of Al-Andalus. Muslims and Jews were expelled, but many found a home across the Mediterranean Sea.
MONA BOUTCHEBAK: And they left Andalusia and went to North Africa - Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
ARCOS: Mona Boutchebak is an Algerian classical singer based in Marseille, France, and the lead vocalist on the new album by Jon Balke and his group Siwan.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AUN BEBIENDO")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in Spanish).
ARCOS: Boutchebak says the culture and especially the music of what came to be called Andalusia was carried and preserved by the exiles.
BOUTCHEBAK: It is a mixture between Arabic music, Spanish. Flamenco comes from this music, from this tradition, from the Arabo-Andalusian one.
ARCOS: It's a tradition that's still taught in schools.
BOUTCHEBAK: There's what we call in Algeria the Arabo-Andalusian schools where you can learn to sing the Arabo-Andalusian tradition. So I went and I said, this is what I want to do. So I started to sing when I was 11, to learn this tradition that we call the Nuba.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MA KONTOU")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in foreign language).
ARCOS: Jon Balke has taken this tradition's poetry and composed his own music around it.
BALKE: It's a framing of the musical project. It puts the project in a framework that speaks about history and that speaks about a kind of a mentality that from what you can read existed in the best parts of this period, kind of an open, liberal practice of tolerance and coexistence.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CASTIGO")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in Spanish).
BALKE: These poems, they speak about this kind of attitude even if they speak about love or rain on the river or mystical experiences. You get the kind of feeling of a period which was really booming period in European history.
ARCOS: But at first, singer Mona Boutchebak resisted the idea of combining her ancient tradition with music from the north and jazz improvisation.
BOUTCHEBAK: At the beginning, even for me it was a little bit hard to imagine baroque music, improvisations, Andalusian music and me in the middle. I was asking myself, what am I going to do? At times it felt like it was so far from me. But it isn't. It isn't. We are all the same. So the title of the album is "We Are Them," "Nahnou Houm."
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BALKE SONG, "NAHNOU HOUM")
ARCOS: Jon Balke hopes that by trying to recapture a long-gone period of cultural and religious harmony his Siwan project can offer an alternative to what seems to be a constant state of worldwide intolerance.
BALKE: It is possible to coexist. It is possible to respect even a person who believes something different from you or comes from a totally different background. And even if there are conflicts, it's possible to solve them in another way than shooting the person.
ARCOS: We may not become another Al-Andalus, but we can try. For NPR News, I'm Betto Arcos.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BALKE SONG, "DEL REY")