The Centre for Arab and Mediterranean Music (CAMM) is an institution operating under the authority of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. It was established on 20 December 1991and its statutes were enacted in October 1994.
With its dual Arab and Mediterranean dimensions the CAMM was designed to serve both as a museum space and as a institution devoted to activities related to the promotion musical heritage.
The CAMM is housed in the prestigious Ennejma Ezzahra Palace, a substantial residence built by Baron Rodolphe d’Erlanger between 1912 and 1922, on the hillside below the village of Sidi Bou Said, 17 km north of Tunis.The baron d’Erlanger was a talented Orientalist painter and a and a celebrated scholar of music, known primarily for his remarkable musicological work in French, entitled La Musique Arabe.
In addition to the departments devoted to the Promotion of musical activities and to Studies and Research, the CAMM houses the National Sound Archive, a key component whose mandate is to collect Tunisian and Arab musical heritage for the purpose of conserving, disseminating and making it available to researchers in the field of music.
The CAMM also includes an instruments-making workshop dedicated both for the restoration of the musical instruments collection and for carrying out organological research.
The CAMM was awarded two major prizes: the Honoris Causa Prize awarded by the International Music Council –UNESCO (1997) and the Arab Academy of Music Prize – Arab League ( 2010), in addition to the Lois-al Faruqi prize award by the Society of Ethnomusicology of the University of Indiana.
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