About Mosaiqa
Mosaiqa Records is inspired by the need to teach American audiences about the vast and rich cultural diversity that exists among people living in along the part of the ancient Silk Road that wends its way through Central Asia.
- We plan to sell original recordings by exceptionally gifted Central Asian musicians.
- We will create and implement residency tours for universities and cultural organizations that introduce new knowledge of Central Asia.
- We promote increased cross-cultural understanding between North Americans and Central Asians.
Our focus spans, but is not limited to former Soviet territories, including the Central Asian republics Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, and territories where Muslims live in the Russian Federation.
Mosaiqa Records features the region’s most innovative virtuosic artists - people who have dedicated their immeasurable talents to reviving and reinterpreting their ancient traditions for the 21st century.
In addition to teaching about diversity through musical performance, Mosaiqa seeks to provide professionalization opportunities for Central Eurasian performers. At present, these include occasional tours to the U.S. during which artists play in front of new audiences and engage in informal and onstage collaborations with musicians trained in genres and disciplines other than their own.
Mosaiqa’s musicians receive 50% of all the proceeds resulting from sales of their music. The remaining money goes for upkeep of the label.
Dr. Helen M. Faller, Founder
Helen is a cultural anthropologist who has been involved in cultural exchange with Central Eurasia since 2002 when she worked with Kazakhstan’s Roksonaki at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Since then, she has been involved in exchanges with musicians, visual artists, handicrafts artisans, and religious leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Her committed belief that anthropological knowledge should be applicable compelled her to develop the Kyrgyz Cultural Performances tour in 2005, which featured Rysbai Isakov, Manaschy - renowned singer of the longest recorded epic in the world, Manas, and Akylbek Kasabolotov - a brilliantly talented traditional musician and member of Kyrgyzstan’s Tengir Too. Her second independent tour was Nauryz with Roksonaki in 2008. Helen recently finished a book manuscript on Kazan Tatars, based on her dissertation (Ph.D., University of Michigan 2003), funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and IREX. She is also Development Director at Philadelphia’s Hotel Obligado Physical Theatre and a freelance grant writer in community development and the arts.
