When a musical culture is endangered and can nearly die out, it may happen that a single person can help to draw attention on it and stimulate the creation of a virtuous circle to induce a revival, even in a society which is so unstable and fragile as the Yemenite one.
This is the case of Jean Lambert, ethnomusicologist and musician, who fell in love with the country from the first time he visited it and became a kind of unofficial ambassador of the traditional music of Yemen from its capital city Sana’a.
During his field research he discovered a lute of ancient origin, the qanbus, that was on the verge of vanishing, as well as the original way of playing a copper dish called sahn mimiye. He studied the social importance of music in the Yemeni culture and collaborated to the process for including the Song of Sanaa in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

About Jean Lambert
Jean Lambert is an anthropologist and an ethnomusicologist specialized on Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the history of Arab music. He also studies Arabic oral literature (poetry, tales, legends) in Yemen and Lebanon.
He is currently Assistant professor in the Musée de l'Homme (National Museum of Natural History, Paris) and an associate researcher in the CREM-LESC (Université Paris Nanterre). He supervised many PhD candidates.

From 2003 to 2008, he was the Director of the French Center for Archeology and Social Sciences (CEFAS) in Sanaa. Between 2009 and 2014, he was the Director of the Centre for Research in
EthnoMusicology (CREM-LESC), CNRS, Université de Paris Nanterre.
More information about his work is available here.

Episode's musical sources list
(most of them coming from J. Lambert’s book:  La médecine de l'âme. Le chant de Sanaa dans la société yéménite, Nanterre, Société d'ethnologie (1997, 1 CD included).


01) Abdallah al-Jabri et Husayn Sa'sa, mizmar
02) Yahya al-Nunu, Chant de Sanaa, oriental lute, “Zamân al-sibâ” (The time of youth)
03) Abdallah al-Hammami, nashîd, “Yigarreb Allah“ (May God bring closer our encounter)
04) Hasan al-Ajami, yemenite lute, “Bada ka-l-badr“ (He appeared like the full moon)
05) Hasan al-Ajami, yemenite lute, instrumental introduction, fartash turki
06) Mohammed Hamud al-Harithi, oriental lute, mutawwal : “Rahmân yâ Rahmân” (O Misericordious)
07) Ahmed al Tashshi, yemenite lute, instrumental introduction, fertash
08) Mohammed al-Khamisi, ”Yâ hayy yâ gayyûm” (O Living God, o Erected), copper plate, sahn
09) Ahmed Telha, declamation of poetry
10) Abdallah al-Hammami, nashîd, “Iqbis mata shiit” (Pick up as you want the flame of love from my liver)
11) The Song of Sanaa, Unesco
12) Abdallah a-Hammami, psalmody, Tasbih of pilgrimage
13) Nidaa Abou Mrad, Tahmîlat Aqsâq Bayyâtî - taqâsîm
14) Shaykh Ali Abu Bakr Ba-Sharahil,  yemenite lute, Song of Sanaa,“Yigarreb Allah” (May God bring closer our encounter)
15) Mohammed bin Shamikh, oriental lute, tarhîb : “Bushrâk hâdha-I yawmu Îd” (Welcome song: Today is a feast day) (from cd Yemen: Songs from Hadramawt, Unesco Collection 1998
16) Abdallah al-Hammami, wedding procession song, ziffa
17) Hasan al-Ajami, Chant de Sanaa, “Ya mughir al-gazala” (O you who make the deer jalous), copper plate, sahn

Disclaimer
Mediterranean Intangible Heritage Soundscape is a podcast by Paolo Scarnecchia, produced by UNIMED, Mediterranean Universities Union. Musical works included in the Podcast are used for purpose of illustration for teaching, and not for commercial purposes.