Michael Frishkopf

Dr. Michael Frishkopf (Ph.D., M.A. and B.Sc.), an ethnomusicologist and a composer, is a Professor of Music at the University of Alberta. He is also the director of Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology (CCE), the founder (2004) and director of the U-of-A Middle-Eastern and North African Ensemble (MENAME), and the founder (1998) of the U-of-A West African Music Ensemble (WAME). 

Michael specializes in playing nay (the Middle-Eastern reed flute), although he also plays a number of other instruments, such as oriental electronic keyboard, piano, and a variety of percussive instruments, very well. His ethnomusicological research interests include Sufi music; the Arab music industry; sound in Islamic ritual performance; music and religion; comparative music theory; the sociology of musical taste; social network analysis; (virtual [world) music], digital music repositories; music in West Africa; music of refugees (mainly Liberian refugees in the Buduburam refugee camp, Ghana); participatory action research; psychoacoustics and music cognition. Michael has conducted many field studies in Egypt and Ghana since 1988. For more information on his current projects, publications, recent talks, recordings and more, you can check frishkopf.org.  Listen to some of his nay improvisations: Nay 1 and Nay 2 (Edmonton Sound Sessions, 2010). A few of his publications are posted in the Research Section of this website.