School of Music

Professor Kevin Dawe

Professor of Ethnomusicology

k.n.dawe@leeds.ac.uk

0113 343 8210

BA, BSc, MSc, PhD

Kevin Dawe is an ethnomusicologist with research interests in the Mediterranean area and parts of Africa. His background in music, anthropology and the natural sciences informs his approach as an ethnomusicologist, embracing such topics as environmentalism, material culture/archaeology, psychology and bio-acoustics. Key concepts in social and cultural theory remain central to his work in trying to understand the power of musical performance, music in/as culture, and the role of musicians in society. A particular focus is his research into musical instruments, notably the guitar and the lyra (a type of ‘fiddle’ from Crete). Current projects include: (i) a book about environmental issues in relation to guitar making; (ii) a British Academy funded project on the fretless guitar in Turkey. Projects at the planning stage include a study of the political economy of musical instrument making in parts of Africa, focussing on issues of development and sustainability.

Kevin studied music at Dartington (specialising in ethnomusicology, Indian music, sitar, music in society, music therapy), biology at Exeter and the Open University (specialising in zoology and ecology), biological anthropology at University College London (writing a thesis on primate vocalisations), and social anthropology/ethnomusicology at the Queen's University of Belfast (PhD on Cretan lyra music). Along the way, he has studied, taught and/or performed on several musical instruments, including the guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, sazi, Cretan lyra, sitar, Balinese gamelan, and West African drums and horns. He has taught and played through most of the guitarist's alphabet of performance styles (Aguado to Zappa).

Kevin has taught music at the following universities: The Open University, University of Wales, University of Ulster, and Queen's University of Belfast. He was a Staff Tutor in Arts and Lecturer in Music at the Open University from 1997-2001 where he managed fifty regionally based tutors and 400 students, but taught and chaired a range of interdisciplinary arts, music and popular culture degree courses. He came to Leeds in 2001, teaching initially on the BA in Popular Music Studies at the Bretton Hall Campus (2001-2003) and then moving with the BA in Popular and World Musics to the city of Leeds campus (where he also teaches on the BA Music and MMus). He has been Director of Learning and Teaching within the School of Music and also prepared the bid and initiated the purchase of the School of Music's Javanese gamelan which arrived in the summer of 2007. At Leeds he has been a member of the Centre for Mediterranean Studies and is a member of the Centre for African Studies.

Kevin has contributed to several national and international conferences (as participant and organiser) including Malta (Unesco/Insula Islands and Cultural Heritage), Edinburgh (Galpin Society), Japan (International Association for the Study of Popular Music) and Toronto (Society for Ethnomusicology). He has recently given invited papers in Paris and Istanbul.

His external appointments have included: Editorial Board member, Ethnomusicology Forum; Book Reviews Editor, Ethnomusicology Forum; Recordings Review Editor, World of Music; Visiting Examiner for BA Music, SOAS, University of London; Visiting Examiner for the MMus in Ethnomusicology, Goldsmith's College, University of London; Member of the University Validation Committee, University of Leeds and Moderator, BA Hons Jazz Studies, MMus Jazz Studies, Leeds College of Music; consultant for Open University validation services; external consultant for universities in Canada, Singapore and the West Indies; assessor for a range of funding bodies (including RCUK, MacArthur Fellowships US).

Ethnomusicology and organology
Popular music
Acoustic ecology, bio-acoustics, music and environmentalism

Increasingly, Kevin's research projects are of an interdisciplinary nature, drawing on his training and interests in music, anthropology, and the natural sciences. However, the core focus of his work is guided by research paradigms in ethnomusicology as exemplified by his current projects. These are: (i) a book about environmental issues in relation to guitar making; (ii) a British Academy funded project on the fretless guitar in Turkey. Projects in the planning stage include a study of the political economy of musical instrument making in parts of Africa, focussing on resource, trade, ownership and sustainability issues.

Kevin’s research on the guitar has drawn on studies in science and technology, design theory, material culture, cognition, sensual culture, ethnography (real and virtual), aesthetics, and globalization (see The New Guitarscape, Ashgate, 2010). This broad study of the guitar in contemporary and cross-cultural context includes discussion and exploration of a wide range of theoretical issues, literature, musical cultures, and guitar technologies. Kevin attempts a synthesis of previous work on the guitar but also tries to expand the terms by which the guitar might be studied. The book project features the work of Robert Fripp, Sharon Isbin, Lionel Loueke, Steve Vai, Bob Brozman, Fred Frith, Dominic Frasca, Erik Mongrain, I Wayan Balawan (Bali), Kamala Shankar (India), and Hasan Cihat Örter (Turkey), among many others.

Kevin's first interdisciplinary publication project was Island Musics (Berg, 2004). Here he combines insights offered by island studies with applied ethnomusicology. The result was an edited collection that discusses in detail the important role that music plays in the construction of island soundscapes and islanderness in relation to such topics as disappearing homelands (islands that are sinking!), environmentalism, political economy, cultural heritage projects, identity and diaspora. An illustrious team of contributors wrote on the music of Australia (Torres Straits), Britain, Cuba, Ibiza, Korean islands (Chindo), Madagascar, Papua New Guinea (Taku), Trinidad, and Zanzibar. Dawe contributed the chapter on Crete, wrote the introduction, and edited the book.

Kevin carried out ethnographic field research in Greece and Spain throughout the 1990s. Several publications arose out of this research period, including the first monograph on lyra music, Music and Musicians in Crete (Scarecrow, 2007). He also wrote a chapter on guitar makers in Spain which formed part of his co-edited collection (with Professor Andy Bennett), Guitar Cultures (Berg, 2001). The 2000s have seen him in search of local music in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea with the BBC, marooned on a tiny island off Viti Levu in Fiji, and up and down the rivers, deltas, and coast of The Gambia and southern Senegal in disconcertingly small or overloaded vessels.

Books (single authored)

In progress: 'The Green Guitar: Towards an Ecomusicology of Musical Instrument Making'. IP Routledge Research Monographs.
The New Guitarscape in Critical Theory, Cultural Practice and Musical Performance. Aldershot:Ashgate (2010). http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754667759
Music and Musicians in Crete: Performance and Ethnography in a Mediterranean Island Society. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press (2007). http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/Flyer2.shtml?SKU=0810856735

Books (edited)

The Mediterranean in Music: Critical Perspectives, Common Concerns, Cultural Differences. Edited by Kevin Dawe and David Cooper. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005. http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/Flyer2.shtml?SKU=0810854074
Island Musics. Edited by Kevin Dawe. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers, May, 2004. http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=753
Guitar Cultures. Edited by Kevin Dawe and Andy Bennett. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001. http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=1499

Contributions to books and conference proceedings

In progress: 'Foreword' to Island Songs and Singers: A Global Repertoire of Roots and Routes edited by Godfrey Baldacchino, Rowan and Littlefield/Scarecrow Press. (Handover early 2011)
In progress: ‘The Cretan Lyra in Performance’ in symposium proceedings due to be published in Turkey under the aegis of the State Conservatory of Music, Istanbul Technical University (Handover January 2011).
In progress: revision of 'The Cultural Study of Musical Instruments' in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction second and revised edition, edited by M. Clayton, T. Herbert, and R. Middleton. London: Routledge. (Handover January 2011)
2009: 'The Woven World: Unravelling the Mainstream and the Alternative in Greek Popular Music' in Ashgate Research Companion in Popular Musicology edited by D.B. Scott, Aldershot: Ashgate.
2007: 'Regional Voices in a National Soundscape: Balkan Music and Dance in Greece' in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse(s) edited by D. Buchanan. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.
2005: 'Performance on a Mediterranean Theme: Musicians and Masculinity in Crete' in The Mediterranean in Music: Critical Perspectives, Common Concerns, Cultural Differences edited with D. Cooper. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.
2004: 'Island Musicians: Making a living from music in Crete' in Island Musics edited by K. Dawe. New York and London: Berg Publishers.
2004: ''Power-geometry' in Motion: Space, place, and gender in the lyra music of Crete' in Space, Place and Music: Popular Music and Cultural Identity, an IASPM book edited by Andy Bennett, Sheila Whiteley and Stan Hawkins. Ashgate.
2002: 'The Cultural Study of Musical Instruments' in The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction edited by M. Clayton, T. Herbert, and R. Middleton. London: Routledge. Pp.274-283.
2002: 'Between East and West: Contemporary grooves in Greek popular music (c.1990-2000)' in Mediterranean Mosaic: Popular Music and Global Sounds in the Mediterranean Area, edited by Goffredo Plastino. New York: Routledge/Garland Publishing Inc. Pp.221-240.
2001: 'Handmade in Spain: The culture of guitar making' with M. Dawe, in A. Bennett and K. Dawe (eds.), Guitar Cultures, Oxford and New York: Berg, pp.63-87.

Periodical articles

2007: 'Arcadia Calling : Cretan Music and the Popular Imagination' in Journal of Intercultural Studies, May, Volume 28 (2), pp.227-236 (Abingdon: Routledge/Taylor & Francis).
2005: 'Symbolic and Social Transformation in the Lute Cultures of Crete: Music, Technology and the Body in a Mediterranean Society' in Yearbook for Traditional Music 37, pp.58-68 (ICTM/Los Angeles: University of California).
2003: 'Lyres and the Body Politic: Studying musical instruments in the Cretan musical landscape' in Popular Music and Society, vol.26 (3), pp.263-283, (North Carolina: Bowling-Green State University Press).
2001: 'People, Objects, Meaning: Recent work on the study and collection of musical instruments' in the Galpin Society Journal, LIV: 219-132.
2000: 'Roots Music in the Global Village: Cretan ways of dealing with the world at large', in World of Music, vol. 42/3: 47-66.
1999: 'Minotaurs or Musonauts?: Cretan music and 'world music'', in Popular Music, vol 18: 209-225.
1998: 'Bandleaders in Crete: Musicians and entrepreneurs in a Greek island economy', in The British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 7: 23-44.
1996: 'The Engendered Lyra: Music, poetry and manhood in Crete', in The British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vol. 5: 93-112.

Conference Proceedings

1998: 'Oriental culture in Greece: Music and international relations' in Popular Music: Intercultural Interpretations edited by T. Mitsui. Kanazawa: International Association for the Study of Popular Music/Kanazawa University, 1998, pp.3-16.

Reviews

Serbian and Greek Art Music, Katy Romanou (ed), Music and Letters, 2010.
Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the Modern World by Timothy Taylor, Ethnomusicology Forum, 2008.
Analytical Studies in World Music edited by Michael Tenzer, in the British Journal of Music Education, 2007.
Bright Balkan Morning: Romani Lives and the Power of Music in Greek Macedonia by Dick Blau, Charles and Angeliki Vellou Keil, Steven Feld. Ethnomusicology Forum, 2005.
Sound of Africa! Making Music Zulu in a South African Studio by Louise Meintjes, in Bulletin of the Centre for African Studies, University of Leeds, 2004.
The Music of Thrace: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Friends of Music Society, Athens, in Music and Letters, 2003.
Healing, Feasting and Magical Ritual: Songs and Dances from Papua New Guinea CD review, in British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 2002.
Songs of the Greek Underworld: The Rebetika Tradition. Elias Petropoulos, trans. Ed Emery, in Popular Music, 2002.
How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education by Lucy Green, in the British Journal of Music Education, 2002.
Vocal Music in Crete CD review in Ethnomusicology, 2002.
The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality, edited by William Washabaugh, in British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 1998.
May it Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music by Timothy Rice, in Folk Music Journal, 1996.
Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place, edited by Martin Stokes, in Anthropology Ireland, 1995.

Radio / TV broadcasts

Island Musics featured on Thinking Allowed, Radio 4, 7 July 2004.
Sounds of Paradise: Clans, Conflict and the Music of Pai Minai (Papua New Guinea) (BBC/Open University) 30-minute television programme first broadcast on BBC2: Monday, 18th February 2002.
Gender and Music: Masculinity. Programme 2 in a BBC Radio 3 series. Interview on my research in Crete and extracts from my field recordings, February 1999.

Keynote & invited lectures

Invited paper: ‘Music, Poetry and Manhood in Crete’, Mediterranean Study Group Colloquium 'Pan-Mediterranean Poetic Competitions and their Music: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practice', International Council for the Study of Traditional Music, Portel, Portugal, December 2011.
'The New Guitarscape: Musical Intersections in Time, Place and Cultures', American Musical Instrument Society, Phoenix, Arizona, May 2011.
Invited paper: 'The Cretan Lyra in Performance', Cüneyd Orhon Kemence Symposium, State Conservatory of Music, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, December 2010.
Invited lecture: 'The New Guitarscape', Cardiff University, January 2010.
Invited lecture: 'The Music of Crete', Scottish Hellenic Society, University of Edinburgh, December 2009.
Invited paper, 'The New Guitarscape', University of Paris VIII, Paris, May 2009.
Panel Chair, 'Popular Music and Urban Identity', Music and the Idea of the North Conference, Leeds Town Hall, September 2008.
Invited lecture, 'Music Research across Continents', Dartington College of Arts, June 2008.
Invited lecture, 'The Music of Crete', Scottish Hellenic Society, University of Aberdeen, November 2006.
Invited Panel Member/paper, 'Teaching Popular and World Musics in Education', University of Liverpool, April 2006.
Invited Panel Member/paper, 'Representations of Gender in Musical Instruments', British Forum for Ethnomusicology, Winchester, April 2006.
Invited Panel Chair, 'Greek Revitalisations' Session, ICTM (International Council for Traditional Music) Conference at Sheffield University, August 2005.
Keynote (with Andy Bennett) 'Sounds of the Guitar: Research at the global crossroads' Conference, Centre for the Study of Popular and World Musics, School of Music, University of Leeds, November 2004.
Invited Paper, 'The Island in Performance: Space, place and gender in the lyra music of Crete', Visualising Paradise Conference, Centre for Mediterranean Studies, University of Leeds, September 2004.
Invited Paper, 'Ethnomusicological Perspectives on Performance in Africa', 'Performing Africa', Leeds University Centre for African Studies Conference, May 2004.
Invited Panel Member, 'Body projects and musical instruments', in 'The Musical Body in Performance', British Forum for Ethnomusicology, University of Surrey, November 2003.
Invited paper, 'Constructing culture: Guitar makers in Spain', Galpin Society Annual Conference, University of Edinburgh, July 1999.
Invited paper, 'Origin myths: Music and cultural politics in Greece', Department of Social Anthropology, The Queen's University of Belfast, October 1998.
Invited paper, 'Orchestral works by Ross Daly, an Irish/Middle Eastern musician', Irish World Music Centre, University of Limerick, October 1998.
Invited paper, 'Guitar Cultures: An introduction', Department of Social Anthropology, The Queen's University of Belfast, April 1998.
Invited paper, 'Eurasian musical landscapes: Orchestral works by Ross Daly an Irish/Middle Eastern musician', Department of Social Anthropology, The Queen's University of Belfast, November 1997.
Invited paper, 'Musical performance, cultural difference, and the anthropology of Michael Herzfeld', Open University Music and Cultures Research Group, International Conference on Music and Cultural Difference, London, July 1997.
Invited paper, 'Power arrangers: The work of lyra musicians in Crete', Institute for Mediterranean Studies, University of Exeter, December 1996.
Invited paper, 'Lyres and the politics of gender: Notions of musical performance in Crete', Department of Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology, The Queen's University of Belfast, February 1996.
Invited paper, 'Music without frontiers: Ross Daly and the politics of Eurasia', Department of Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology, The Queen's University of Belfast, February 1996.

Conference papers (oral)

Panel Organiser, 'Handmade in Spain: The culture of guitar making', Society for Ethnomusicology, Musical Intersections Conference, Toronto, November 2000.
'Lyres and the body politic: Human instrumentality and musical ethnography in Crete', John Blacking's Legacy, European Seminar in Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Queen's University of Belfast, September 2000.
'The Present and the Past in the music of Crete', International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK Annual Conference, Institute of Popular Music, The University of Liverpool, September 1998.
'From Greece to Afghanistan: Analysing Free Point, an orchestral work by Ross Daly', Faculty of Arts, The Open University, Milton Keynes, December 1997.
'Oriental culture in Greece: Music and international relations', International Association for the Study of Popular Music Biennial Conference, Kanazawa University, Japan, 1997.
'The musical frontiers of Europe', The Open University Arts Faculty in Ireland Annual Conference, Dublin, June 1997.
'Cultural heritage and the music industry in Crete', Foundation for International Studies at the University of Malta/Unesco/Insula, Malta, May 1997.
'Many an old tune's played on a fiddle: Music and the construction of masculinity in Crete', Gender and Music Study Day, Department of Music, University of York, May 1996.
'Listening to Ross Daly's Eurasia', British Forum for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, March 1996, Winchester.
'Odyssey into global music culture: The music and musicians of Crete', the Sean O'Riada International World Music Conference, University College Cork, March 1996.
'Manhood in the Making: Music and musicians in a Greek island culture', Music Department, University of Wales at Bangor, December 1995.
'Musical iconography in Crete', International Council for Traditional Music UK Chapter Annual Conference, April 1994, Ambleside.
'Mediterranean syncretism and the exotic in Cretan music', International Council for Traditional Music UK Chapter Annual Conference, The Queen's University of Belfast, April 1992.

Other

Open University Course Units

Humanities Course AA314: 'Studies in Music, 1750-2000: Interpretation and Analysis' (Written 2001, first presentation 2003):

Unit 28: The Popular and the Classical in Heavy Metal Guitar Music. (12,000 words)

Unit 29: Exotica, World Music and Field Recordings (1950s-1990s). (12,000 words)

Catalogue and Interactive Database

Peter Crossley-Holland Second Instrument Collection: Catalogue and Interactive Database. Department of Music, The University of Wales at Bangor, North Wales, 1996.

Documentary Films

Sounds of Paradise: Clans, Conflict and the Music of Pai Minai (Papua New Guinea) (BBC/Open University) 30-minute television programme first broadcast on BBC2: Monday, 18th February 2002.
How to be a Rock God: Heavy metal and classical virtuosity. (BBC/Open University) 25-minute video programme. Produced in 2001.
Video Compilation to accompany Developments in Popular Music (1950s-2000) (Open University/BBC) 25-minute video programme for the Humanities Course AA314: 'Studies in Music, 1750-2000: Interpretation and Analysis' produced in 2001. Includes previously recorded film clips featuring the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, the BaAka people of Central Africa, and material collected in 2001 on the music of the Huli people in the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

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