About

Tanya Heather Merchant is an ethnomusicologist and associate professor in the Music Department at UC Santa Cruz, affiliated with the Arts Division and the Feminist Studies Department. Her research interests include music’s intersection with issues of nationalism, gender, identity, and the post-colonial situation, with a geographical focus on Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. She has conducted fieldwork in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Russia. Merchant is also an avid performer on both the Uzbek dutar and the baroque bassoon, and has given concerts with ensembles in the U.S., England, and Uzbekistan. Her recent publications include articles on Uzbek popular, folk, and traditional musics, which have appeared in journals such as Cahiers de Musiques Traditionnelles and Image and Narrative.

Research topics

• Archaeology
• History
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Sociology
• Media studies
• Art
• Literature
• Philosophy
• Library science
• Art history
• Ancient history
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Geography

Selected publications

• Imagined homogeneity

  Routledge eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

  After achieving independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbekistan embarked on the project to establish itself as a comprehensible independent nation with an ancient and revered past. This national project was new in the sense that it focused on Uzbekistan as a nation-state. However, this nationalist rhetoric borrowed significantly from Soviet-era nationalities policy as it was implemented in the Central Asian republics. As it did in the Soviet era, music continues to play a prominent role in the project of performing and naturalising Uzbekistan as a nation. The music most associated with the concept of national tradition in Uzbekistan is maqom. Maqom repertoires, specifically the Shashmaqom of Bukhara, are inherently multi-ethnic and multi-religious, since both Uzbeks and Tajiks and both Muslims and Jews perform it. This renders maqom a curious, yet nonetheless effective, choice to demonstrate the ancient cultural roots of the Uzbek nation. This chapter examines the Soviet-era history and independence-era manifestations of maqom’s link to Uzbekistan’s national project. It analyses the standardisation of maqom repertoires and the rhetoric that surrounds them in terms of individual and institutional interpretations. Based on more than a year and a half of ethnographic fieldwork in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and over a decade of research on traditional music in Uzbek institutions, this chapter treats performances of musical nationalism in terms of individuals deciphering Uzbekistan’s evolving messages about music, meaning, and history.

  PublisherDOI

• Kerstin Klenke. The Sound State of Uzbekistan: Popular Music and Politics in the Karimov Era. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. xiv, 330 pp., list of figures, eResources, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-1138486140 (hardback) and ISBN 978-1351046435 (e-book).

  Yearbook for Traditional Music · 2021-12-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Kerstin Klenke. The Sound State of Uzbekistan: Popular Music and Politics in the Karimov Era. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. xiv, 330 pp., list of figures, eResources, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-1138486140 (hardback) and ISBN 978-1351046435 (e-book). - Volume 53

  PublisherDOI

• Steppe Dreams: Time, Mediation, and Postsocialist Celebrations in Kazakhstan. By Margarethe Adams. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. x, 238 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. $45.00, hard bound.

  Slavic Review · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • History
  • Social Science

  Steppe Dreams: Time, Mediation, and Postsocialist Celebrations in Kazakhstan. By Margarethe Adams. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020. x, 238 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Glossary. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. Figures. $45.00, hard bound. - Volume 80 Issue 3

  PublisherDOI

• The Music of Central Asia ed. by Theodore Levin, Saida Daukeyeva, and Elmira Köchümkulova

  Asian Music · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • History
  • Geography
  • Ancient history

  Reviewed by: The Music of Central Asia ed. by Theodore Levin, Saida Daukeyeva, and Elmira Köchümkulova Tanya Merchant (bio) The Music of Central Asia. Edited by Theodore Levin, Saida Daukeyeva, and Elmira Köchümkulova. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016. xxii + 676 pp., 456 color illustrations, maps, glossaries, bibliography, index. ISBN: 9780253017512 (hardcover), $40.00; ISBN: 9780253017642 (e-book). Companion website: http://www.musicofcentralasia.org/. This volume by Levin, Daukeyeva, and Köchümkulova is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Central Asian music. The volume is a collection of chapters from 27 authors, including local scholars, and thus a [End Page 125] significant amount of material appears here for the first time in the English language. The Music of Central Asia is an incredible accomplishment. It provides a wealth of perspectives and is remarkably comprehensive in its coverage of the region. The book defines Central Asia broadly, including Afghanistan, Mongolia, Western China, and parts of Siberia, along with former Soviet republics Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Although it pays significant attention to music associated with these broader nations, it does not neglect more specific regional musics, such as that of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, which are often overlooked in less comprehensive surveys. The volume covers a range of musics, from those that are created, taught, and performed in state institutions to those that originate and remain in the grass roots. Rural and urban musics are included, as are musics created for media and stage and those that are not. Indeed, the musico-cultural division between nomadic and settled peoples in Central Asia is a major organizational strategy in the book. After a short section introducing Central Asian music and culture broadly, the book is divided into three large sections: "The Nomadic World," "The World of Sedentary Dwellers," and "Central Asian Music in the Age of Globalization." Within these large sections, chapters focus on musical practices from specific cultures, such as Karakalpak epics, Kyrgyz music for jaw harps, popular songs in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and neotraditional music in Kyrgyzstan. The content of The Music of Central Asia provides depth and breadth, meaning that it is both a teaching tool and a reference volume for scholarship. Beyond the scope of the practices it covers, the book clearly addresses issues of musical change with historical perspectives. Collaborating with so many experts means that the writing style and focus vary widely. For the most part, this is an advantage since it presents a plurality of ways to approach and understand Central Asian musical culture. Occasionally it makes teaching challenging, however, since the level of detail and kinds of information that students are asked to master differs significantly from chapter to chapter. The breadth and comprehensive coverage of The Music of Central Asia renders those challenges worth surmounting, though. I used the textbook in a course on Central Asian music for music majors, and it was quite a boon for the students, especially when compared to previous iterations of the course that demanded a motley collection of cobbled-together readings and resources. Having an affordable textbook with engaging readings, vivid photography, and a multitude of audio/visual resources transformed what I was able to accomplish in the course. There is only one addition that I would suggest to improve a second edition: a chapter dedicated to folk orchestras or arranged folk music or both. The phenomenon is briefly mentioned in the "Central Asian Music in the Soviet Era" section of the introductory chapter [End Page 126] (20–21) and has slight coverage in other chapters, but there is no clear place in the textbook that would provide a reading for a class meeting focused on arranged folk music. The audiovisual resources provided via an accompanying website (www.musicofcentralasia.org) come primarily from Levin's work with Smithsonian Folkways, so each chapter has high-quality video and audio examples that students and scholars can access easily (but examples are not available for download). The website's A/V and additional readings are useful to interested students and scholars alike. As a teaching tool, however, streaming audio and video have significant limitations. It was extremely difficult to get music majors to...

  PublisherDOI

• SONG, SEVDAH, AND CEREMONY:

  Indiana University Press eBooks · 2019-05-23

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Uzbekistan: Modern and Contemporary Performance Practice

  The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture · 2019-01-01

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding
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• Introduction

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017-04-20

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This book explores issues of gender performance and national identity as they are personalized and individualized and then themselves performed by women musicians of Uzbekistan. It considers the rich relationship that dutar music has with women's culture and history in Uzbekistan but shows that the performance of national identity, of femininity, and of a sense of tradition that engaged the modern world was not limited to the dutar but encompassed a wide range of professional musical activities. The book demonstrates the central place of women in the musical project of nationalism, not only as symbols but also as agents, actors, and innovators; they are the drivers of much of the musical activity that supports Uzbekistan's new national project and they engage in a variety of strategies of identity to make a place for themselves in these musical styles, musical worlds, and, ultimately, in Uzbekistan.

  PublisherDOI

• Like Tereshkova in the Cosmos

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017-04-20

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter examines how women perform post-Soviet nationalism using the canon of European classical music by focusing on a project designed to produce Uzbek Western art music, one that retains prominence in independent Uzbekistan. The project has involved getting composers engaged in the creation of a sense of Uzbek style in composition. In Uzbekistan, from remarkably early in the Soviet period, women have been important figures in the performance and promulgation of Uzbek compositions. The chapter first provides a historical overview of Western art music in Soviet Uzbekistan and compares it with Western art music in independent Uzbekistan. It then considers how women's performances support a construction of national identity that began in the Soviet era and continues today. The chapter features interviews with Dilbara Abdurahmanova, the first female director of the Alisher Navoiy State Opera, and prominent pianist and former conservatory director Ofeliya Yusupova. By far the most pervasive musical style heard in Tashkent, popular music, known as estrada, provides audiences with a glamorous construction of Uzbek femininity.

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• Conclusion

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017-04-20

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This conclusion considers the border-crossing process involved as women come together as a community, applying educational theorist Etienne Wenger's ideas about learning as engaged by a community of practice to musical activity—specifically to the musical activities of professional women musicians both inside and outside institutions. By contrasting practices within and beyond the Uzbek State Conservatory and by putting the rhetoric surrounding each of these musical styles into conversation, the diverse nature of women's musical contribution to the Uzbek national project comes into sharper focus. The more everyday context of a social gathering allows not only border crossing, but also an emphasis on the pleasure of music making and the joy of singing along. Institutions define musical genres, not musical experience. The conclusion emphasizes the complex relation of national identity to individual feminine experiences.

  PublisherDOI

• Ancient Treasures, Modernized

  University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017-04-20

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter examines the role of women in the arranged folk music in Uzbekistan in the post-Soviet era. It looks at the rhetoric of Ro'za opa and her students, which focuses much more on musical literacy, virtuosity, and international standards. These priorities stem from the emancipatory impetus, during the Soviet period, to include women in the ethnonational project of creating folk orchestras. The chapter begins with a discussion of the assumptions of youth and femininity associated with certain dutar ensembles. It then traces the origins of dutar ensembles as they share history with similar ensembles from other former Soviet republics. It also presents the accounts of three prominent women musicians of the Soviet period: Faizila Shukurova, Firuza Abdurahimova, and Ro'zibi Hodjayeva. Finally, it considers the importance of Western art music to Tashkent's soundscape, and role that women play in this.

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