Michael Frishkopf
short URL for this page: http://bit.ly/mfwiki
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. (Aldous Huxley)
Dr. Michael Frishkopf
Associate Professor, Department of Music
Associate Director, Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology (CCE)
Research Fellow, folkwaysAlive!
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: http://bit.ly/mfwiki
Office hours: Wednesdays, 1 pm - 3:15 pm. Schedule an appointment.
Contents
Info
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.
Publications
A sampling of publications available online, in whole or in part...
- Prediction of dissimilarity judgments between tonal sequences using information theory, in Proceeding HCCE '12: Proceedings of the 2012 Joint International Conference on Human-Centered Computer Environments, Pages 194-199, ACM New York, NY, USA ©2012
- Folkways in Wonderland: A Cyberworld Laboratory for Ethnomusicology, (Rasika Ranaweera, Michael Frishkopf, and Michael Cohen), in Proceeding CW '11: Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Cyberworlds, Pages 106-112, IEEE Computer Society Washington, DC, USA ©2011
- MuDoc (Multimedia/Music Documentation): a dynamic digital multimedia archive for world music, in Proceeding HC '10, Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Humans and Computers
- Globalizing the soundworld - Islam and Sufi Music in the West, in Sufis in the West (Routledge, 2008)
- Music and media in the Arab World
- 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.)[1]
- 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.
- 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).
- Sufism, Ritual, and Modernity in Egypt: Language Performance as an Adaptive Strategy
(UCLA dissertation; available fulltext via UMI)
Outreach and action research
- Giving Voice to Hope: music of Liberian refugees
- reviving traditional musical cultures of Ghana
- Ensemble service
Interviews
Sufism and the Moulid (Afropop worldwide)
Koranic Recitation (Afropop worldwide)
Thus Spake the Reed Flute (al-Ahram Weekly)
Multimedia
Music composition
http://www.archives.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article/2008/12/9855.html
http://www.fwalive.ualberta.ca/~michaelf/MF_materials/Compositions/
CDs
Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees
kinka: traditional songs from Avenorpedo
Film
Virtual Museum
Virtual Museum of Canadian Traditional Music
Active projects
Technology
- FiW (folkways in Wonderland): [cyber(world]music)
- MuDoc (Music/Multimedia Documentation) peer-reviewed federated world music web digital repository
- biofeedback microtonal ear training... (in progress)
Digital media
- Music and Architecture in Islam (website and film, in progress...)
- Musical change in a West African Village
- Giving Voice to Hope: Music of Liberian Refugees
- Kinka: Traditional songs from Avenorpedo
- VMCTM: Virtual Museum of Canadian Traditional Music (funded by Canadian Heritage Information Network)
Educational programs
- West African Music, Dance, Language, and Culture: summer program in Ghana
- Studies in Ethnomusicology and World Music at the University of Alberta
Some musical compositions and improvisations
http://www.fwalive.ualberta.ca/~michaelf/MF_materials/Compositions/
