Dr. James Kippen

Biography

James Kippen is Professor Emeritus of Ethnomusicology, having served the field with a focus on Hindustani music and Javanese gamelan. He studied at the University of York under Neil Sorrell, and furthered his academic pursuits in Social Anthropology and Ethnomusicology with John Blacking and John Baily at Queen's University, Belfast. Kippen's doctoral research, conducted in Lucknow, India, examined tabla drumming within its sociocultural context, particularly through the lens of his teacher, hereditary master Afaq Hussain Khan. He held post-doctoral fellowships in computer-assisted musical analysis and has taught various courses in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology at Queen's before joining the University of Toronto in January 1990. His research, supported by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, explores cultural concepts of time in Indian music and the changing theory and practice of rhythm and metre in Hindustani music. Additionally, he studies and performs on the tabla and pakhavaj drums and engages with Balinese gendèr wayang music through the ensemble Seka Rat Nadi. Kippen has published several works, including 'Tabla Lucknow: Cultural Analysis Musical Tradition' and has contributed to projects investigating musical transitions during colonialism in the Eastern Indian Ocean. He is currently writing a book on eighteenth and nineteenth-century sources of drumming in North India.

Research Interests