Because the value of cultural diversity to the human community, like the value of biological diversity to continued life on this planet, cannot be underestimated. As the world shrinks, dominant ideologies, religions and cultural expressions overwhelm the margins and we lose essential elements of the creative process: our appreciation of difference, our freedom to choose, to experiment and to dream of alternatives. ECCA aims to record and present traditional music and musicians in Egypt as vibrant and renewable cultural resources that bridge Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African cultures. ECCA further encourages efforts to re-awaken the multi-layered complexity of Egyptian culture of music and arts, to return the music to the critical role it has played in the daily life and imagination of the Egyptian people, to counter the trend to isolate it from its original communities, to share this rich resource with the world community and, by presenting it in new contexts to encourage perception of this music as a resource for creativity.