Rainer Polak

Rainer Polak is an ethnomusicologist[1] and djembe drummer who has researched in the field of West African celebration music performances and written in the field of ethnomusicology.

Biography

Rainer Polak studied social anthropology, African linguistics, Bambara language, and History of Africa from 1989 to 1996 at Bayreuth University (Germany), and jenbe music performance from 1991 until today in Bamako (Mali). All of his studies and work in Bamako were accomplished with the help of locally and traditionally minded drummers whose playing is presented in his book and the corresponding CD.

Polak worked as a professional jenbe player in Bamako for one year in 1997/98, performing at well over a hundred traditional weddings, spirit possession dances and other celebrations on the basis of being hired by the late Jaraba Jakite, most of the times, and occasionally by the late Yamadu Bani Dunbia, by Jeli Madi Kuyate, and by Drissa Kone. The ethnomusicological dissertation and book he wrote on that experience won the academic prize of the German African Studies Association in 2003/04. Polak ranks as an outstanding jenbe soloist in Germany. As a teacher he has specialized in giving focused classes on micro-timing, and master-classes in jenbe solo performance.

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Gibson, Gloria J.; Daniel B. Reed (December 1, 2003). "Music and Culture of West Africa: the Straus Expedition.". Retrieved 17 August 2011.
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