Michael Frishkopf

Professor of Music
Director, Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology
University of Alberta

“Music for Global Human Development”

Tue, Apr 21, 2015
12:30pm - C103 Hesburgh Center

Music, live or mediated—perhaps the most powerful social expression of humanity—presents a possible tool for forging personal social networks to strengthen the “lifeworld,” which I explore in my project “Music for Global Human Development.” After outlining the problem, theory, and method, I will present several examples of my own collaborative work in global human development from West Africa and the Arab world under two broad headings corresponding to the social warp and weft: “songs for sustainable peace and development” and “music for cultural continuity and civil society.”

Michael Frishkopf is professor of music and director of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology at the University of Alberta. Focusing his research on the music and sounds of Islam, the Arab world, and West Africa, Frishkopf includes among his interests music and religion, comparative music theory, the sociology of musical taste, social network analysis, digital music repositories, music of refugees (mainly Liberian refugees in Ghana), psychoacoustics and music cognition, and participatory action research.

Recent works include an edited collection, Music and Media in the Arab World (American University in Cairo Press, 2010), a collaborative video, Songs of the New Arab Revolutions, two music CDs supporting West African development, the series “Songs for sustainable development and peace,” and numerous articles and book chapters. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.

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