Simha Arom

Simha Arom ( born August 16, 1930 in Dusseldorf ) is a French -Israeli ethnomusicologist. He has specialized in the polyphonic and polyrhythmic music of the Central African Republic and analyzed the oral musical tradition of the local pygmies.

Life

Arom studied 1951-1954 French horn at the Conservatoire de Paris, after which he went to Jerusalem and was hired as principal horn with the Israel Broadcasting Authority from 1958 to 1963. In 1963 he founded in the Central African capital Bangui National Museum Musee National Boganda, whose director he remained until 1967. Then he returned to Paris and studied from 1968 to 1973 at the Sorbonne in Jacques Chailley ethnomusicology. From 1968 he was a member of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS ). Since 1993 he has lectured at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. At the University of Tel Aviv, he held the position of Associate Professor from 1979 to 1983, he was also musical director from 1980 to 1982 on public Israeli radio.

Prizes and awards

Works

• African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Structure and Methodology. 1991, ISBN 0-521-24160- X.
• Ethnomusicologie Précis d': Frank Alvarez- Pereyre. CNRS Éditions, 2007