Tausi Taarab Orchestra / Nawal Mlanao

Zanzibar’s first women’s orchestra

The orchestral tradition of the taarab developed at the court of the Sultan of Zanzibar, at the hub between the Arabian peninsula, sub-Saharan Africa and India. Since the early 20th century, women have played an important role in these ensembles of strings, accordion and percussion – but always as singers, such as the legendary Siti Bint Saad in the 1920s. Female instrumentalists, as in the Tausi Taarab Orchestra, are still the exception.