Michael Frishkopf

Dr. Michael Frishkopf

Associate Professor, Department of Music (www.music.ualberta.ca)

Associate Director, Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology (CCE) (www.fwalive.ualberta.ca)

Research Fellow, folkwaysAlive! (www.fwalive.ualberta.ca)

Mail: Michael Frishkopf, Department of Music, Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta, 3-82 Fine Arts Building, Edmonton, AB CANADA T6G 2C9

Office: 334D Old Arts Building

Tel: Skype: (617) 275-2589; office: (780) 492-0225. Music Dept: (780) 492-3263

Fax: Music Dept: (780) 492-9246. CCE (780) 492-0242

Web: www.arts.ualberta.ca/~michaelf/

Music: Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees: bit.ly/BuduCD

kinka: traditional songs from avenorpedo (Ghana): kinkadrum.org

Music and media in the Arab World: bit.ly/mmaw

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. (Aldous Huxley)

Michael Frishkopf, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Alberta, is an ethnomusicologist and composer. A graduate of Yale College (BS Mathematics, 1984), Tufts University (MA Ethnomusicology, 1989), and the University of California, Los Angeles (Ph.D. Music, 1999), Dr. Frishkopf’s ethnomusicological research interests include Sufi music; the Arab music industry; sound in Islamic ritual performance; music in West Africa; music and religion; comparative music theory; the sociology of musical taste; social network analysis; digital music repositories; music of refugees (especially in the Buduburam refugee camp, Ghana); participatory action research…

He has received numerous fellowships supporting his research, including grants from Fulbright, the American Research Center in Egypt, the Social Science Research Council, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the Killam Foundation (Canada), the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, supporting his extensive fieldwork in Egypt.

In performance, Michael specializes in the nay (Middle Eastern reed flute), and also performs the song-drum-dance traditions of Ghana. He is the founder (in 2004) of the University of Alberta Middle Eastern and North African Music Ensemble, as well as the University of Alberta West African Music Ensemble (in 1999). Both ensembles perform frequently in public in the Edmonton area, especially to support progressive causes. He also performs “Third Stream” and world music inflected jazz on the piano, following studies with Ran Blake and others in the Third Stream program at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Some online publications:

· Globalizing the soundworld - Islam and Sufi Music in the West, in Sufis in the West (Routledge, 2008)

· Music, Nationalism, and the development of Egypt's phonogram industry: Muhammad Fawzy, Misrphon, and Sawt al-Qahira (SonoCairo) (Asian Music)

· Mediated Qur’anic recitation and the contestation of Islam in contemporary Egypt in Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East (Ashgate)

· Spiritual Kinship and Globalization, in Religious Studies and Theology v. 22 #1 (2003)

· Authorship in Sufi Poetry, in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, #23: Intersections: Literature and the Sacred (2003)

· Some Meanings of the Spanish Tinge in Contemporary Egyptian music, in Mediterranean Mosaic, edited by Goffredo Plastino (in the series entitled Perspectives on Global Pop, edited by Gage Averill; Routledge Publishing) (2002).

· Changing modalities in the globalization of Islamic saint veneration and mysticism: Sidi Ibrahim al-Dasuqi, Shaykh Muhammad ‘Uthman al-Burhani, and their Sufi Orders. Religious Studies and Theology, v. 20 nos. 1 & 2(2001).

· Tarab in the Mystic Sufi Chant of Egypt. In: Colors of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle East , edited by Sherifa Zuhur. American University in Cairo Press, 2001.

· Inshad Dini and Aghani Diniyya in 20th c Egypt : a review of styles, genres, and available recordings Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association, Winter 2001. (Arabic translation: Wijhat Nazar (Viewpoints), #35, vol. #3, December 2001, under the title: “al-inshad al-dini wa al-aghani al-diniyya fi masr al-qarn al-‘ishrin”, pp. 68-72. Cairo : Egyptian Company for Arab and International Publication.)

· Shaykh Yasin al-Tuhami: A typical layla performance, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, vol. 6 (2002).

· al-Inshad al-Dini (Islamic religious singing) in Egypt, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, vol. 6 (2002).

· Music and Media in the Arab World, edited by Michael Frishkopf. Cairo: American University in Cairo

Press (2010).

· Sufi music review: (1) Soufis d'algerie: Mostaganem/Algeria: The Sufis of Mostaganem. 2003. Prophet Collection 31. Philips 472 503-2; (2) Chant soufi de Syrie: Dhikr Qadiri Khalwati de la Zawiya Hilaliya, Alep /Sufi chanting from Syria : Dhikr Qadiri Khalwati of the Zawiya Hilaliya, Aleppo . 2002. Maison des Cultures du Monde, Inedit W 260109. (3) Maroc: L'art du sama' a Fes/Morocco: The Art of Sama' in Fez . 2002. Disques VDE-GALLO, VDE CD-1104. (CD reviews). In Yearbook of the International Council for Traditional Music.

· Review of Asmahan’s Secrets: Woman, War, and Song (No. 13 in the Middle East Monograph Series ( Austin: UT Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2000), by Sherifa Zuhur), International Journal of Middle East Studies (fall 2002).

Dissertation:

· Sufism, Ritual, and Modernity in Egypt: Language Performance as an Adaptive Strategy
(available fulltext via UMI)

Active projects:

· FiW (folkways in Wonderland): [cyber(world]music)