GSSC Seminar Series
25 March 2025
Musical Exchange Across the Strait of Gibraltar
Luis Gimenez Amoros (University of Cologne), Nina ter Laan (University of Cologne) & Matthew Machin-Autenrieth (University of Aberdeen)
12:00-13:00
In this seminar, the three panellists will discuss their current research around musical exchanges and encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar. In particular, the discussion will touch on the close relationship between music and wider societal themes pertinent to the region such as migration, racism, intercultural dialogue and postcolonial history.
Luis Gimenez Amoros has conducted research and lectured in ethnomusicology on four continents, and is an international performer and the composer of sixteen solo albums. His academic research has focused on music and refugees in the Sahara Desert (for his doctoral dissertation), sound repatriation and revitalization of historical recordings from African sound archives, and the historical circulation of Iberian music within an Afro-Asian context and in Latin America. His publications include the monograph ´Tracing the Mbira Sound Archive in Zimbabwe´ (Routledge, 2018) and the awarded tetralogy album ´The Unknown Spanish Levant´ (recorded in Egypt, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, South Africa and Spain).
Nina ter Laan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne as part of the Collaborative Research Centre "Media of Cooperation" project "Digital Publics and Social Transformation in the Maghreb". She is also part of the DAAD-funded exchange project, Dialogue on Migration Governance (DiaMiGo) and the Mediterranean Liminalities Research Lab.
Matthew Machin-Autenrieth is a lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the University of Aberdeen and the Principal Investigator for the European Research Council-funded project ‘Past and Present Musical Encounters across the Strait of Gibraltar’ (2018–23). He completed his Masters and PhD in Ethnomusicology at Cardiff University. Following his studies, he was appointed as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge (2014–18) before becoming Senior Research Associate from 2018–20. He has taught ethnomusicology at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of Cambridge, Cardiff University and the University of Plymouth.