Gerhard Kubik

Born in Vienna on December 10th, 1934, Gerhard Kubik is a music ethnologist.

Kubik studied ethnology, musicology and African languages at the University of Vienna. He published his doctoral dissertation in 1971 and achieved habilitation in 1980. Gerhard has made many publications since 1959, especially on the music, dance and oral traditions of Africa and of African-Americans based on his field research in 15 African countries as well as Venezuela and Brazil. The main topic of his research is oral tradition, music and dance, systems of traditional education, extensions of African culture in America (especially Brazil) and linguistics of the Bantu languages of central Africa.

Gerhard Kubik compiled the largest collection of African traditional music worldwide (more than 25,000 recordings), most of which are archived in Phonogrammarchiv Wien in Vienna.

Gerhard Kubik, perhaps the most broadly knowledgeable and prolific of scholars on the music traditions of Africa and the Black Diaspora (with over 300 articles and books and at least 25,000 field recordings of African music traditions to his credit) first came to Tanganyika in 1960, after having already spent some months in Uganda in 1959.

Professor Kubik, from the University of Vienna, has made research-study trips to Africa every year for the past 48 years, and has written his findings on the music of over 20 countries in Africa. He also has studied and written about African music influences in Brazil and the United States.

In Tanzania, Professor Kubik has spent much time especially in the central and southern parts of the country and has released an LP record in 1989 of multipart singing of the Wagogo, Uatumbuka, Wakisi and Wanyakyusa.

When not studying and writing on the music of Africa, Professor Kubik performs as a clarinettist with a neo-traditional kwela Jazz Band from Malawi that has been highly successful performing throughout Europe and Brazil. The band accompanied him on his return-visit to Tanzania (late July 2007). They performed at the University of Dar es Salaam and at the National Museum. This trip was organised by Professor Mitch Strumpf and his right hand man Khalifa Kondo (graduate of Music class- University of Dar es Salaam).

While in Tanzania, Professor Kubik present 100 CD recordings of Tanzanian music traditions he collected since 1960 to the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, University of Dar es Salaam. This valuable collection, sponsored by a generous grant from the German Embassy in Dar es Salaam, will be used for research purposes by students and staff of the Department and the University, as a whole.

References

* Kubik, Gerhard, "Theory of African Music" 1994 ISBN 978-3-7959-0560-6
* Kubik, Gerhard, [http://www.lit-verlag.de/isbn/3-8258-7800-7 Zum Verstehen Afrikanischer Musik, Aufsätze, Reihe: Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd. 7, 2., aktualisierte und ergänzte Auflage, 2004, 448 S., ISBN 3-8258-7800-7] (in German language)
* Simon, Artur (Ed.), "Musik in Afrika", (Staatliche Museen) Berlin 1983 (in German language)
* A. Schmidhofer / D. Schüller (Hrsg.) "For Gerhard Kubik" Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1994

External links

* [http://saoas.org/oldsite/bettermann/symposium00/index_sympos00.htm List of publications (until 1994)]

For further information on Kubik contributions in African music (particularly Tanzania) please contact Khalifa Kondo, University of Dar es Salaam. Cellphone [phone].