Paul Franklin Berliner (born 1946) is an American

ethnomusicologist Ethnomusicology is the multidisciplinary study of music in its cultural context. The discipline investigates social, cognitive, biological, comparative, and other dimensions. Ethnomusicologists study music as a reflection of culture and investiga ...

, best known for specializing in

African music The continent of Africa is vast and its music is diverse, with different regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres like makwaya, highlife, mbube, township music, jùjú, fuji, jaiva ...

as well as

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and other improvisational systems. He is best known for his popular ethnomusicology book on the

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

mbira Mbira ( ; ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal Tine (structural), tines, played by holding the instrument ...

, ''The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe,'' for which he received the

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

Deems Taylor Award. He also published ''Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation'' for which he received The Society of Ethnomusicology's Alan Merriam Prize for Outstanding Book in Musicology. Berliner received his Ph.D. from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

. Paul is the oldest of three and was born in Cambridge, MA to Joe and Ann Berliner. Berliner is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. He formerly taught at the School of Music of

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

. He has recorded and produced albums of Shona

music, and has been recorded as a performer with the Paul Winter Consort. In 1979 he released an album of jazz played on the kudu horn, "The Sun Rises Late Here" (Flying Fish FF092). He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 2004.

Publications

*''The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe.'' Berkeley : University of California Press, 1978. . *''Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. . *'' The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and Legacy'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019. . *'' Mbira’s Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020. .

References

1946 births Duke University faculty American ethnomusicologists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Living people Northwestern University faculty Wesleyan University alumni {{US-ethnomusicologist-stub