© Ferminius
Saturday, Oct 10 2026 · noon
Ermita de San Sebastián | Granada
[Free admission until capacity is reached]
Lecture /
RUBÉN GARCÍA BENITO
Lecture: Singing at the Edge of the World:
Sacred Music along the Silk Road
Notes /
For a fourteenth-century friar setting out from Europe towards the Mongol East, this was quite literally the edge of the world. But the edge of the world depends on where one stands, and long before Europeans arrived, this vast region already had its own music, its own beliefs, and its own ways of giving voice to the sacred.
As part of Todos los Tonos y Ayres’ activities as the Artist in Residence at the 2026 MUSAG Festival, its director, Dr Rubén García Benito, explores in this lecture this sonic world: the painted caves of Dunhuang, the Syriac Christian communities who sang in Chinese, and the multicultural court of the Mongols. He also follows those who crossed these lands singing: pilgrims, merchants, and missionaries.
Biographies /
Rubén García Benito
Rubén García-Benito is a senior researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and a musician. He holds a degree in East Asian Studies, specialising in Sinology, and trained at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He has also been a visiting researcher at Peking University. His work in historical musicology focuses on music as a form of cultural mediation between Europe and Asia. He is a member and director of Todos los Tonos y Ayres, a Granada-based ensemble specialising in early Sino-European music, and is the creator of the Daughter of Silk programme.