Author: Chinthaka Prageeth Meddegoda

Gisa Jähnichen has been conducting research on music for more than 25 years in South East Asia, and is currently working at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She obtained her PhD in Musicology and Ethnomusicology from the Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, and her professorial thesis (Habilitation) in Comparative Musicology from the University of Vienna, Austria. Extensive field research led her to Southeast Asia, East Africa, Southwest and Southeast Europe. Together with Laotian colleagues, she built up the Media Section of the National Library in Laos. In 2015, she was awarded a Distinguished Professorship at the Institute for Minority Arts Research of Guangxi Arts University, China. She is also Chairperson of a Study Group within the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) and Secretary of the Training and Education Committee in the International Association for Sound and Audiovisual Archiving (IASA).