On Friday September 26, 2025, Dr. Troy Sternberg gave lectures in Dr. Urbain’s classes at Soka University, Music in Peacebuilding and Seminar III. These classes are offered in the School of International Peace Studies (SIPS).

Dr. Sternberg is an expert in deserts, recently co-authoring the World Atlas of Deserts and Drylands (Princeton, 2025). His research features Mongolia and Central Asia. As a Principal Investigator he teaches at ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon in Portugal. He is also an affiliate of the Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Center. He is currently at the Tokai Daigaku Daigakuin Kenko Kagaku (from September 2025 to March 2026). He is also interested in the Musics of the Deserts, researching what is special about the type of music created in arid and difficult environments.

In his lectures at SIPS, Dr. Sternberg shared some of his findings, including his article “Herd it in the Gobi: Deserting Pastoralism” (2022) that gives an introduction to the challenges of desert lives, including climate change, environment, mining, degradation, water, social and economic pressures, children leaving for education and more. He also introduced a paper about how herders sing lullabies to their animals in Mongolia, about the human-animal link in deserts.

Two videos were selected to illustrate his presentations, the most famous song of the rock (Desert Blues) band Tinariwen, Sastanàqqàm (2017), and the amazing Mongolian art of throat singing. We also spent a long time exploring all the implications of the birth, development and pause of the Festival in the Desert in Mali.

Dr. Sternberg’s lectures enabled participants to expand their musical horizons, and to consider new aspects of musicking, in particular in challenging environments.

Given Min-On’s history supporting research on musics of the Silk Road, we were excited to learn more from Dr. Sternberg’s expertise. MOMRI looks forward to continuing to explore the intersection between music and geography with Dr. Sternberg.