Gert-Matthias Wegner

Gert-Matthias Wegner is a musician and ethnomusicologist. Besides his early training in Germany in classical European music and twenty-four years of tabla apprenticeship with Nikhil Ghosh in Bombay resulting in a
Ph.D. thesis on tabla, he has carried out research in various local musical
traditions of Nepal, producing several documentary films, publications and CDs. During the course of his research in Bhaktapur, he studied all the drumming traditions of this mediaeval Newar farmers' town and taught many local players. He is the founder and Head of the Kathmandu University Department of Music, in Bhaktapur, Nepal, where he has been a resident since 1983. To date, this is the only university department in South Asia conducting fully-fledged B.A. and M.A. courses in ethnomusicology, along with training in classical North Indian music and several Nepalese musical traditions.

In 2003, Wegner has been appointed as Professor for Ethnomusicology at the Free University Berlin.