People / Gert-Matthias Wegner

Lecturer/s

Gert-Matthias Wegner

Gert-Matthias Wegner

When Gert-Matthias Wegner (born 1949) was 20, he became the pupil  of tabla virtuoso Pandit Nikhil Ghosh in Mumbai; his apprenticeship was to last for 24 years. The tabla is a traditional Indian percussion instrument which is difficult to master. In Kiel, Cologne and Bonn Wegner read science, music ethnology, musicology, Indology and ethnology. Between 1982 and 1990 he worked for the Schwerpunkt¬forschungsprogramm Nepal of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, specializing in the percussion techniques practised in Bhaktapur. Work on the historical musicological connections between India and Nepal took up most of his time until 1993. Wegner then participated in a DAAD project preparing the foundation of a Department of Music at Kathmandu University in Bhaktapur, whose first head he subsequently became. Since 2003 he is also a professor at the Seminar für Vergleichende Musikwissenschaft/Ethnomusicology, Free University Berlin.