Gerhard Kubik (born 10 December 1934) is an Austrian music ethnologist from

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. He studied

ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...

musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

and

African languages The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families: * Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Souther ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...

. He published his doctoral dissertation in 1971 and achieved habilitation in 1980.

Biography

Kubik has been carrying out research in Africa for every year since 1958. Since then, he has published over 300 articles and books on

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and

African-Americans African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...

, based on his field work in fifteen African countries, in Venezuela and Brazil. Kubik's topics are music and dance,

oral traditions Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...

and traditional systems of education, the extension of

African culture African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

to the Americas (especially Brazil) and the linguistics of the

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, Eastern africa and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages. The t ...

of central Africa. Moreover, Kubik has compiled the largest collection of African traditional music worldwide, with over 25,000 recordings, mostly archived at the Phonogrammarchiv Wien in Vienna. Kubik also performs as a clarinettist with a neo-traditional

kwela Kwela is a pennywhistle-based street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat. It evolved from the marabi sound and brought South African music to international prominence in the 1950s. The music h ...

Jazz Band from Malawi that has been performing throughout Europe and Brazil.

References

* Kubik, Gerhard, ''Theory of African Music'' 1994 * Kubik, Gerhard
Zum Verstehen Afrikanischer Musik, Aufsätze, Reihe: Ethnologie: Forschung und Wissenschaft, Bd. 7, 2., aktualisierte und ergänzte Auflage, 2004, 448 S.
(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

Africa and The Blues: An Interview with Gerhard Kubik
,

Afropop Worldwide ''Afropop Worldwide'' is a radio program that presents the musics of Africa and the African diaspora. The program is produced by Sean Barlow for World Music Productions in Brooklyn, New York City, New York. It is hosted by the veteran Camerooni ...

List of publications (until 1994)
Austrian ethnomusicologists Living people 1934 births {{ethnomusicologist-stub