Anna Morcom
Mohindar Brar Sambhi Professor of Indian Music, Professor - Ethnomusicology

Anna Morcom works on music and dance in India and Tibet from diverse perspectives that seek to understand the contemporary world and processes of change in and through musical culture. Her research encompasses ethnographic and oral historical methods and traditional as well as popular musics. She is currently working on a monograph on Hindustani music and two edited volumes: Creative economies of culture in South Asia: Craftspeople performers (Routledge, co-edited with Neelam Raina), and the Oxford Handbook of Economic Ethnomusicology (OUP, co-edited with Timothy D. Taylor). She is also the author of Unity and discord: Music and politics in contemporary Tibet (2004, Tibet Information Network); Hindi film songs and the cinema (2007, Ashgate); Illicit worlds of Indian dance: Cultures of exclusion (2013, Hurst and OUP, awarded the Society of Ethnomusicology’s Allan Merriam prize and the Marcia Herndon prize of SEM’s Gender and Sexualities section in 2014). She has also published articles and chapters in a range of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. She made a VCD album of Tibetan songs with the singer Tanzin Gyatso in Tibet in 2006, entitled sPrin Gyi Metok (‘Cloud flowers’).

Morcom’s research has been supported by a number of grants from the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy. She is the founder of SEM’s Special Interest Group on Economic Ethnomusicology. Morcom has been interviewed on Illicit worlds of Indian dance by various UK media including BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed, and by India-based media including the national newspaper, The Hindu, the social justice magazine, Tehelka, and the independent news, information and entertainment organization Scroll.

Sumeet Anand Pandey Brings Dhrupad Music, Indian Traditions to UCLA
The Daily Bruin interviewed Sumeet Anand Pandley, in residence at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music as a Fulbright Working Fellow in the Fall of 2024.
The Indo-Persian Musical Confluence Welcomes Attendees From Across the Globe
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music’s Department of Ethnomusicology held eight virtual panels and performances as part of “The Indo-Persian Musical Confluence” series November 2020 – May 2021. This
Anna Morcom accepts post as the Mohindar Brar Sambhi Endowed Chair in Indian Music
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Ethnomusicology is pleased to announce that Anna Morcom has accepted the department’s offer to be the next holder of the Mohindar

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