ABSTRACT
I recall one afternoon in the summer of 2006 in the far north of Azerbaijan. Around me a garden of mulberry trees, in front of me the Caucasus mountain range rising white-capped into the horizon to blend imperceptibly with Georgia and Dagestan. Enjoying the legendary hospitality of my hosts while listening to the stirring rhythms of Caucasian music, it was easy to imagine a time when peoples moved freely through these lands, before administrative, political, and national boarders had sliced them into discreet units. As John Colarusso illustrates in Nart Sagas (2002), a collection of heroic narratives that have been shared across ethnicities of the Caucasus for centuries, when traveling I saw more not what divided the peoples of the region, but rather how much they shared: pride in their unique cultures, respect for their long-held traditions, and love for their mountainous lands. In my fi eldwork, I found all these qualities embedded in musical cultures that were specifi c to every locale, even every village, yet with elements that were shared throughout the region. It was this dynamic interplay between local and regional movements of musical traditions that inspired me to frame my research in the borderlands and to explore the musical migrations that I found there.
