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Simha Arom, Docteur d'État (Sorbonne University, Paris) is currently Emeritus Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (C.N.R.S.). His theoretical work bears particularly on the relation between meter and rhythm, and on methods of modelization of orally transmitted music. He has worked for many years in the Central African Republic, where he developed original methods, which made it possible to understand the complex mechanisms of vocal and instrumental polyphonic music, in particular, the highly complicated one of the Aka pygmies. His recent work on African and Indonesian musical scales applies innovative research techniques, in particular interactive methods using both traditional instruments and synthesisers, thus opening up a field of research at the crossroads of musicology and the developing discipline of cognitive psychology. Professor Arom has published several books, numerous scientific papers, and some thirty records and films. He has held the position of visiting professor at numerous universities, among them Cambridge (U.K.), UCLA, Montreal, Basel, Zurich, Tel Aviv. He was awarded the Silver Medal of the C.N.R.S. in 1984 for his development of methods of analysis of traditional, unwritten polyphonic music. Three of his records have won the Grand Prix International du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros, and his book African Polyphony and Polyrhythm, published by the Cambridge University Press, was awarded in 1992 the prestigious ASCAP Deems Taylor Award .
Articles by Simha Arom
