Tanya Merchant

Tanya Merchant is an ethnomusicologist whose research interests include music’s intersection with issues of nationalism, gender, identity, and the post-colonial situation. With a geographical focus on Central Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Balkans, she has conducted fieldwork in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is an avid performer on the Central Asian dutar and the baroque bassoon, and has given concerts in the U.S., England, and Uzbekistan. Tanya received her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology with a concentration in women’s studies from UCLA. Recent publications include her book, Women Musicians of Uzbekistan: From Courtyard to Conservatory, published by the University of Illinois Press, and articles on Uzbek popular, folk, and traditional musics that appear in journals such as Image and Narrative, Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles, and Popular Music in Society.

ARI Supported Project:

Beyond Colonial Legacies and Silk Road Stereotypes: New Directions for Dutar Ensembles in Uzbekistan and the U.S., residency of master-dutarist Ruzibi Hodjayeva.
To support a two-week residency for master-dutarist Ruzibi Hodjayeva to collaborate with Dr. Tanya Merchant on her ethnographic account of women’s dutar ensembles and the changing rhetoric that surrounds them. This residency will result in both musical performances and publications and will address changes in repertoire and rhetoric coinciding with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A new emphasis on Uzbek tradition arts’ decolonial possibilities arose as a result and must be accounted for.