Matthew Rahaim

Matthew Rahaim is a musician and scholar working on the fertile borderlands of sonic ecology, raga music, and the American experimental tradition. His musical training is grounded in the Gwalior lineage of Hindustani music. His recent book Ways of Voice is an investigation of traditions of voice cultivation and ethical self-work in the Hindustani vocal ecumene, from Bollywood to Qawwali to Sufi Pop. Other essays include speculative work in voice studies, gesture, raga theory, relationality, and the metaphysics of participation. His first book Musicking Bodies is about gesture in raga music.

 Matthew's recent compositions and installations have appeared at the Modulus Festival, the Wakpa Triennial, Drone Not Drones, and The Great Beyond festival. Matthew's recent project, Resonant Transmutations, features a suite of newly composed pieces for instruments crafted by Pedram Baldari out of decommissioned police rifles. His Tanpura-e Hawa is a new musical instrument, designed to be played even by untrained musicians, by blowing wind across a tapestry. He is currently working on close readings of the individual song repertoires of American Robins, a suite of astrological pieces drawing on the cosmic music theory of Johannes Kepler, and a collection of text scores that experiment with relational protocols, called Improvising Relationality.

His courses at UMN include Practices of Listening, What Do Voices Do?, and Writing Music: Transcription, Notation, and Beyond. He welcomes graduate student projects in ethnomusicology, composition, and the newly designed program in Global Creative Studies.