Joep Bor
Professor emeritus of Extra European Performing Arts
- Name
- Prof.dr. J. Bor
- Telephone
- +31 71 527 1480
- j.bor@inter.nl.net
Joep Bor is a Professor emeritus of Extra European Performing Arts at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts.
About mr. Prof.dr. Joep Bor
Joep Bor (1946) is a botanist, sarangi player and musicologist, and a professor at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University. In 1990 he founded the World Music Department at Rotterdam Conservatory, and in 1997 the Jazz, Pop & World Music Department which he chaired until 2001. After this he was appointed director of research and professor of world music at the Codarts Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Rotterdam.
In addition to about a hundred articles and book chapters on a wide range of topics – and contributions to Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and the forthcoming second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments – Bor has written and co-edited six books. His pioneering monograph The Voice of the Sarangi was published by the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and The Raga Guide – with 74 concise raga recordings by the flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia, sarodist Buddhadev Dasgupta, and vocalists Shruti Sadolikar and Vidyadhar Vyas – by Nimbus Records. It has received wide acclaim, three international world music awards, and was reprinted several times.
In 2002-2003 Bor was the guest curator of the exhibition Inde du Nord: Gloire des princes, louange des dieux at the Paris Musée de la Musique, and in 2007-2008 he was the artistic advisor of the Concertgebouw for the Amsterdam India Festival. At present he is working on three books: (1) World Music and its Precursors; (2) Mirrors of Raga: Hindustani Musical Instruments, 14th to 20th Centuries (with Philippe Bruguière); and (3) The Bayadères: Five Devadasis in Europe, 1838-1839 (with Tiziana Leucci).
Born in Amsterdam, Bor has lived more than eight years in India, carrying out botanical as well as musicological research. In 1968 he began studying sarangi with Pandit Ram Narayan. Though he had other sarangi teachers such as Ustad Abdul Majid Khan and Pandit Hanuman Prasad Misra, his main guru was the veteran singer Pandit Dilip Chandra Vedi.
Bor has a Masters of Science in Botany and a PhD in South Asian studies. He was the first scholar who pointed out that world music and ethnomusicology are two different disciplines which have a much longer history than is generally assumed. His succinct definition of raga as ‘a tonal framework for composition and improvisation’ is widely quoted.
Professor emeritus of Extra European Performing Arts
- Faculty of Humanities
- Academie der Kunsten
- Bor J. & Harvey J. (2017), Review of: Magriel N. & Perron L. du (2013), The Songs of Khayal. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers. Asian Music. Journal of the Society of Asian Music 48(1): 117-120.
- Bor J. (2015), ‘Journeys to the West, and Journeys to the East [International conference 'Contre-culture dans les arts indiens', Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, 28-29 May 2015]. .
- Bor J. (2014), Ravanahasta. In: Libin L. (Ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 229-230.
- Bor J. (2014), Pinaki. In: Libin L. (Ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 110-111.
- Bor J., Sorrell N., Helffer M. & Magriel N. (2014), Sarangi. In: Libin L. (Ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 383-387.
- Bor J. (2014), Europe’s Bayadères Craze [Round table 'Women Music Makers in India', SEM (Society for Ethnomusicology) Annual Meeting, Pittsburg, 13-16 November 2014]. .
- Bor J. (2014), Voluptuous Bayadères or Dancing Whores? On Praise and Contempt for Courtesans in Early Colonial India [International conference 'Censorship and Women Resistance in the Performing Arts', EHESS, Paris, 22-23 May 2014]. .
- Bor J. (2014), Klaus Ebeling Donates Unique Ragamala Slide Collection, South Asia Program : 14-15.
- Bor J., Baily J. & Dick A. (2014), Sarinda. In: Libin L. (Ed.), The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 387-388.
- Bor J., Harvey J., Nalini D.F. & Nijenhuis E. (2013), Hindustani Music: Thirteenth to Twentieth Centuries. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers.
- Bor J. (2013), On the Dancers or Devadasis: Jacob Haafner’s Account of the Eighteenth-Century Indian Temple Dancers. In: Kouwenhoven F. & Kippen J. (Eds.), Music, Dance and the Art of Seduction. Delft: Eburon. 233-60, 356-65, 415-421.
- Bor J. (2012), Rotterdam World Music (read by Philippe Bruguière) [International conference 'De la Danse de Shiva à la World Music', Paris, 29-30 May 2012]. .