Research in Ethnomusicology

Meet the Würzburg Ethnomusicology Team
Research projects and online ressources
Research Publications in Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicology staff research areas

Dr. Juniper Hill is Professor and Chair of Ethnomusicology. She is interested in the social and creative dynamics of artists with diverse backgrounds in Germany’s postmigrant, superdiverse society. (See Music of our Neighbors and Musikalische Vielfalt in Würzburg.) As a Henriette Herz Scout of the Alexander Foundation, she hosts scholar-musicians to carry out research projects with migrant artists in Germany with heritage from the scholars’ home regions. Her previous work includes extensive field research on creativity, improvisation, pedagogy, revival, and intercultural dynamics in South Africa, Finland, the US, and Ecuador.

Dr. Clara Wenz is a lecturer in ethnomusicology who specialises in music in and from the Middle East, especially Syrian as well as Arab-Jewish musical cultures. Prior to joining the Institute of Music Research, she spent several years studying Arabic and carrying out fieldwork in Damascus and Beirut, worked at the Goethe Institute in Cairo, and, most recently, held a post-doc position at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her new research project focuses on the raqs al-kheil (Arabic for “dance of the horse”), one of Egypt’s most popular musical-equestrian traditions.

Dr.des. Fabio Dick works as lecturer in Ethnomusicology at JMU Würzburg. He went to Music College (Regensburg 2006–2008) and holds a B.A. in Applied Musicology and Music Pedagogy (KU Eichstätt 2009–2013) as well as a M.A. in Musicology and Ethnomusicology/Transcultural Music Studies (JMU Würzburg 2012–2016). Expected to be published in 2026, his dissertation on Music and Homeland is based on fieldwork in Eastern Bavaria. The main focus of both his teaching and research is on sociocultural and glocal dimensions of musicking in the 20th and 21st century, yet also on the interrelationship between traditional and popular musics.

Current Ethnomusicology Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers

Dr. Toyin Samuel Ajose is a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Würzburg and a Senior Lecturer and former head of the Department of Music at the University of Ibadan. He obtained a doctorate in Ethnomusicology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His research, which intersects music, religion/spirituality, popular culture and migration in Africa and Diaspora has been published in the Journal of African Cultural Studies, Muziki, African Musicology Online, Religions, Journal of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, Journal of Association of Nigerian Musicologists (JANIM), Journal of Religion and Culture, Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies. Dr Ajose has been awarded the A.G. Leventis Postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS, London, and the American Council of Learned Societies Postdoctoral fellowship under the African Humanities Program. He serves as a Member of Council for the Society for Ethnomusicologists (2022–2025); President of the Guild of Organists of Nigeria; Public Relations Officer for the Association of Nigerian Musicologists(ANIM) and the Music Director of the Chapel of the Resurrection, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Mehdi Bagheri is a doctoral student that is currently doing research on Kurdish musicians in diaspora. He approaches this topic with theories of revivalism, hybridity, and identity, by focusing on Kurdish diasporic communities in Germany and Sweden.

Dr. Loab Hammoud is an ethnomusicologist and Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg, where he is researching identity formation in musical performance and the role of music in the lives of Syrian musicians as they adapt and rebuild their homes in Germany. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Haifa, where his research focused on Arab music education and performance among Israeli Jews. His doctoral research focused on the history of Arab art music in Mandatory Palestine and among Palestinian musicians in the Diaspora. Loab plays and teaches the oud and Arabic music theory.

Peeyush Nepal is a doctoral candidate and tabla player carrying out fieldwork on intercultural friendship dynamics in the intensive peer-to-peer learning environments of Ethno Camps.

Jehoshaphat “Kofi” Sarbah is a doctoral candidate whose research focuses on Twiwee, a sonic-kinaesthetic practice central to artisanal fishing in Ghana. Working with crews in Moree and nearby coastal communities, his study examines how coordinated singing, clapping, and rhythmic movement function as real-time decision infrastructure rather than cultural accompaniment. His work combines ethnomusicology, embodied cognition, and sustainability studies to investigate what current approaches to coastal livelihoods overlook when they treat sonic practice as expression rather than coordination.

Ebru Yazici is a doctoral student who focuses on extended musical approaches in Europe, especially in the framework of improvisation sessions. Her study explores contemporary socio-political dynamics in relation to technic-aesthetic-philosophical components and multiculturalism/cultural interconnectivity. She has also researched polyphonic overtone singers in Europe, especially in the framework of improvisation sessions. Her work explores contemporary socio-political dynamics in relation to issues of multiculturalism and musical hybridity.

Affiliated Colleagues and Guest Researchers

Dr. Cornelia Günauer is a trained musicologist and social anthropologist and has conducted extensive field research on the use of music during election campaigns in India. In India, her focus especially lies on the Northeastern region (Meghalaya) where she has spent several months for her PhD research. Having worked closely with the African Music Archives (Mainz), she has also built up an expertise in different musics from across the African continent. She held a post-doc position in the research project “Learning from Ethnomusicology and Our Neighbors: Musical Heritage, Creativity, and Intercultural Engagement” which is headed by Prof. Juniper Hill and funded by the VW-Foundation. In her work she is interested in the multiple connections between music and politics, musical diversity, community-participatory approaches, and Applied Ethnomusicology.

Prof. Guilnard Moufarrej is an Associate Professor in the Languages and Cultures Department at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Music Research at the University of Würzburg, Germany. Her research examines the intersections of music, forced migration, and religious practice, with particular attention to liturgical traditions within Eastern Christian churches in the Middle East and their diasporic communities. Her scholarly interests encompass music and displacement, music and protest, music, emotion, and affect, practices of lament, liturgical music traditions, and the role of music in foreign language acquisition. She has conducted extensive fieldwork among Maronite communities in Lebanon and the United States. Since 2015, her research has focused on the multifaceted role of music in the Syrian conflict, exploring its use as a vehicle for wartime propaganda as well as its function as a psychosocial and educational intervention among Syrian youth in refugee camps. Her current research investigates the relationship between music and well-being among forced migrants and examines the role of music, spirituality, and religious practice in processes of healing, resilience, and community formation among Syrian Melkite communities in Germany.

Dr. Luis Alejandro Villanueva has a background in ethnomusicology (MA) and philosophy of science (PhD). In addition to integrating both disciplines, his research engages with themes in embodied cognition and cultural evolution. From this interdisciplinary perspective, his work aims to contribute to a better understanding of the evolutionary origins of human musical capacities, as well as the relationship between music-making and social cognition, and how these can help explain processes of musical transmission and change. He has also conducted fieldwork in various Indigenous regions of Mexico. He has held research stays at the Centre for Music and Science at the University of Cambridge and at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Vienna, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, in Klosterneuburg, near Vienna. He has also worked as a lecturer of Mexican music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW). He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Computational and Theoretical Biology at the University of Würzburg. Alongside his academic work, he remains actively involved in traditional Mexican music, collaborating with various ensembles and taking part in international recordings and music festivals.

Dr. Mauro Orsini Windholz is a postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institut für Musikforschung at Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg (JMU) interested in how humans derive meaning from pitch structures (aka harmony). In pursuing this question, he draws on several methodologies, including music theory, music analysis, behavioral psychology, and computational analysis of historical trends in music documents. His current project involves understanding the harmonic vocabulary of Brazilian choro and its relationship to Western classical and popular styles. Prior to this project, his PhD at Princeton University (U.S.) investigated how listeners associate genre and emotion labels to different styles of harmony, through behavioral experiments. Other projects involve harmony and metaphor, music and narrative and analysis of Brazilian 20th century classical music. Mauro has taught courses and lectures on music theory, the analysis of popular music, Brazilian popular music and music and emotion. Mauro possesses ample experience as performer, arranger and composer of many styles, including jazz, choro, rock and Western classical.

Ethnomusicology Doctoral and Postdoctoral Alumni

Dr. Alma Bejtullahu was a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg 2024-2026. Dr. Bejtullahu completed her studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her research focuses on the music of minorities from the perspective of ethnicity, gender, or migration experience, with an emphasis on the Slovenian situation. She has also researched the amateur musical practices of Albanians in the former Yugoslavia. Before joining the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg as a postdoctoral fellow, she was part of the research team at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, on the project Romani Musicians in Slovenia, funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. Previously, she was one of the founding team members of the Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Her professional experience also includes radio and television journalism and audiovisual editing. Alma Bejtullahu is an accomplished singer in a multi-part vocal group, an active musician and organizer of music events of minorities with migrant background in Slovenia. She is the author of several articles and the book "Musical and Dance Practices of Women with Migrant Background" published by the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. During her postdoctoral fellowship, she is researching the Albanian community in Germany and its diverse musical practices.

Dr. Lisa Herrmann-Fertig specializes in historical methods, examining colonial and missionary influences, as well as music and education. She has conducted extensive archival and field research on South Indian musics, as well as shorter projects on World Music Festivals in Germany and contemporary music theatre in Berlin. In her new work, she is interested in exploring the intersections between, Ethnomusicology, Ecomusicology, and Human-Animal Studies in Papua New Guinea in Hindu rituals (especially Theyyam). She carried out her doctoral research on music as an instrument of the Jesuit mission in South India from the end of the 17th century until their expulsion in 1759. In addition to in-depth archival and library research in Goa, Lisbon, Évora, Rome, Munich and Mainz, she conducted field research in South India. Pre-dissertation focuses on the question of intercultural communication in missions through musical phenomena and the unique method of Jesuit missionary work through musical aesthetic expressions.

Dr. Luciano Navarro is a composer and lecturer from Brazil who carried out the postdoctoral project “Freedom as a Trigger for Musical Creativity” with funding from DAAD.

Former Ethnomusicology Staff

Prof. Dr. Max Peter Baumann is Professor Emeritus in Ethnomusicology. He specializes in field research methodologies, the anthropology of listening, globalization, revival, and other topics, and has conducted extensive field research in the Bolivian Andes and the European Alps.

Dr. Nepomuk Riva is a German ethnomusicologist with a research focus on West-African musics and the image of Africa in German music culture. 2016-2021 he was coordinator of the DAAD-Graduate School “Performing Sustainability”, a German-Ghanaian-Nigerian university collaboration based on joint research on cultural sustainability. He was visiting Professor of Ethnomusicology in Würzburg from 2022-2024. His interest is to use the methods of applied ethnomusicology to disseminate academic knowledge to a broader audience, like the music intervention “unison against racism”.