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Arts Division
Graduate Programs Coordinator
Staff
Communications Building
107
Film and Digital Media
Michael Lindsey is an ethnomusicologist based in Santa Cruz, California. His primary research focuses on the musical performance practices of South Asia, with a specific interest in the performance practices of the tabla, hand drums played extensively in Central and South Asia, and the Afghan rubab. From 2008-2011 Michael lived in Chennai, India where he worked in the South Indian film music industry and studied classical and folk percussion instruments with many acclaimed musicians. Michael holds a PhD in Cross-Cultural Musicology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and has a Bachelor of Music Performance from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. His doctoral work focused on classical and non-classical styles of tabla and rubab performance practice, and the affects of modernity on Hindustani music culture and practice. From 2016-2017 Michael was a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India where he studied Qawwali and Sindhi Sufi percussion traditions. He was also a tabla disciple of Ustad Akram Khan of Ajrara gharana. In 2018 Michael continued his musical research in Kabul, Afghanistan with a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. He studied the rubab with Ustad Din Mohammad Saqi, ghazal-style tabla playing with Ustad Fraidoon Miazada, and Pashto-style tabla playing with Ustad Nazir Latif. Michael is also the lead researcher for Preserving Afghan Cultural Arts (PACA), a 501c nonprofit based in Fremont, CA, to support Afghan musicians.
2019-2020 President's Dissertation Year Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz
2016 Asian Cultural Council - Afghanistan Award
2015 Fulbright-Nehru Student Researcher Award
2014 Critical Language Scholarship, Hindi
2013 Critical Language Scholarship, Hindi
2013-2016 Regents Doctoral Fellowship, University of California, Santa Cruz
Michael performs with Keshav Batish for the DePauw University School of Music Convocation Hour, 28 April 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFesno-tpRU
Michael accompanying fellow Fulbright winner, Avery Waite (cello), at the South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference in Kolkata, India, 8 March 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qhl-dxt4ok&pp=ygUVbWljaGFlbCBsaW5kc2V5IHRhYmxh
Michael's MA Tabla Recital at the University of California, Santa Cruz, 24 April 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr0UEJkNoAw&pp=ygUVbWljaGFlbCBsaW5kc2V5IHRhYmxh
"Rhythm and Identity in Afghan Mahali Drumming," Association for Central Eurasian Students at Indiana University Annual Conference, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 10 Feb 2024
"Musical Defiance: Afghan Music and the Return of the Taliban," Society for Ethnomusicology's Annual Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, 21 Oct 2023
"Memory in Melody: The Place of Mohammad Omar's Music in Contemporary Afghanistan," Society for Ethnomusicology's Annual Meeting, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 7 Nov 2019
"Virtuosity in Repetition: Ṭhekā Playing in South Asia," Northern California Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology (NCCSEM) Annual Meeting, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA, 2 Mar 2019
“Drumming to Poetry in South and Central Asia: The Afghan, Pashtun, Sindhi, and Panjabi Bāj of Tablā,” Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, 16 Nov 2018
“The Afghan and Pashtun Bāj of Tablā,” Afghanistan in Academia: Knowledge and Representation Workshop, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, London, England, 20 Oct 2018
“The Importance of Music and the Arts in War Torn Societies,” American University, Afghanistan, Kabul, Afghanistan, 9 July 2018
“Exploring Sama’ through Percussion in Sufi Devotional Music Performance,” South and Central Asia Annual Fulbright Conference, Kolkata, India, 6 Mar 2017
“Escaping the Violence: Afghan Musical Culture in the Fremont Diaspora,” Conference on the Music of South, Central, and West Asia, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 5 Mar 2016
(2024), "Familial Frontiers: Working with Hindustani Musicians in Kabul," in Annika Schmeding and Nafay Choudhury (eds.), Frontier Ethnographies, Oxford, UK: Berghahn Publishing.
(2021), "My Musician Colleagues in Afghanistan," essay in Peacebuilding and the Arts Now, e-newsletter for the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University, August 2021. https://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/peacebuildingarts/newsletter/contributions/musicians-afghanistan.html
