Music Department Colloquium: Paul Berliner—Reflections on Immersive Study and Collaborative Research with Zimbabwean Mbira Musicians, 1969–2022

Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 4:30pm
Zoom

FREE! Reservation required.

At our colloquium, I will elaborate the goals of the sequel to my first book, The Soul Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe, which grew out of my dissertation as a Wesleyan doctoral candidate. Its sequel, which builds on my 1990s jazz research (Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation), comprises a series of ‘interlocking’ mbira books that have resulted from my work with Shona associates over the decades. The first two were The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and Legacy and Mbira’s Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation (the latter co-authored with Cosmas Magaya), published by the University of Chicago Press in 2020. The third is nearing the finish line: A Prodigy’s Calling: The Early Musical Biography of Cosmas Magaya, Zimbabwean Mbira Master. The books are integrated with ample music transcriptions and an extensive library of audio-visual website assets. With the completion of the series this fall, I hope to have finally satisfied the intent of my original Ph.D. dissertation.

Paul F. Berliner is the Arts and Sciences Professor Emeritus of Music at Duke University. He is the author of The Art of Mbira: Musical Inheritance and Legacy, Mbira’s Restless Dance: An Archive of Improvisation, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, and The Soul of Mbira: Music and Traditions of the Shona People of Zimbabwe.

The colloquium is organized by Assistant Professor of Music John Dankwa and Assistant Professor of Music and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Saida Daukeyeva as part of the Music Department Colloquium Series.