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Hello, my name is Richard Kurin and I'm the undersecretary for museums and
research at the Smithsonian. I first worked for the institution in 1976 for
the bicentennial of the United States. Out on the National Mall in front of the
Smithsonian museums, we had hundreds and hundreds of musicians from around the
United States and around the world. One can walk up and down the mall and get a
list, a lesson in the history of our national culture and world music. For me,
it was especially pointed because I'm a cultural anthropologist by training.
On the mall we had Pakistanis from different parts of that country, and
while I had a traverse all over Pakistan to hear those sounds there, on the mall
the American public, the visiting public, can just hear exquisite music that they
would never hear in their life through a program at the Smithsonian, and meet
those musicians firsthand.