The music of the Mediterranean region has a uniquely beautiful and rich history, characterized by a multitude of traditions resulitng from millennia of continuous exchange and crossover of influences between the peoples of neraly all of the world's great civilizations. Even the most contemporary of this region's native idioms carries something of the seeds of antiquity, while some sounds perhaps remain relatively unchanged for hundreds or even thousands of years. One common feature however, which has even united the multifarious peoples of the Mediterranean throughout their long, complex, and often turbulent history has been their awareness of the profoundly sacred and very special nature of the art of music.
   Ancient Greek texts, for example, lucidity document the heated debates between the great thinkers of the time concerning music, as well as the superhuman feats accomplished through this medium by figures such as Orpheus, Pythagoras, Thalitas, and countless others to whom divine status was accorded due to their unique prowess and deep knowledge.
   In the three great religions of revelation native to the region (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) the significance and transcendental power of music is clearly recognized despite the fact that it has induced fear as often as it has been a medium of divine inspiration.
   It is for this reason that the great Persian mystic of the 13th century AD, JALA'UDDIN RUMI described music as the sound of the door of paradise and that one's attitude and feelings towards it are determined by whether one hears the door opening or closing. It is believed that through the medium of music the human soul is coerced into entering the material world and that, through this self-same medium, it is returned to the dimension of the divine. This unique contrast and interplay between the sacred and the profane which seek their resolution and unification through the means of music remains even today central to all Mediterranean musical traditions.
   Regrettably, the considerations of contemporary reality have all but banished this aspect of music to the realm of the unconscious, thus denying to the inhabitants of the region as well as to others, access to the heart of one of the world's most vital and luminant traditions, whose significance certainly transcends its natural boundaries. It is to th re-awaking of awareness in this, the essential mystery of music, that our humble efforts are devoted.