Thomas Burkhalter, PhD, is an anthropologist, multidisciplinary artist, and writer from Bern, Switzerland. He is the founder and director of Norient (Norient.com) and the Norient Festival. Burkhalter has co-directed documentary films, including Contradict (Berner Filmpreis 2020, Al-Jazeera Witness), and created AV/theatre performances. He is the author and co-editor of several books, such as Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut (Routledge) and The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East (Wesleyan University Press). Currently, Burkhalter's focus lies on his new music/AV duo, Melodies In My Head, and the podcast Long Take: Life as an Artist. Burkhalter teaches regularly at universities and leads workshops for arts institutions. His work combines personal and international perspectives, often in close collaboration with artists and thinkers worldwide.
Burkhalter ran various research projects (financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation), and he taught at Universities in Berlin (Humboldt), Fribourg, Oldenburg, Paderborn, Karlsruhe, Basel and Bern. He wrote academic and journalistic articles and produced radio features on music in the Middle East, Africa and Europe for academic journals, blogs, newspapers, magazines and radio stations (e.g. Popular Music and Society, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Swiss National Radio SRF, Die Zeit, TAZ, SWR2, Der Bund). His experimental radio feature, “Gqom Edits – A Durban Visit”, was nominated for Prix Europa in 2017.
He works across different forms of art: including the audio-visual performances “Sonic Traces: From the Arab World”, and “Sonic Traces: From Switzerland”; the exhibition “Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World” (e.g. ZKM Karlsruhe, CTM Berlin, Base Milano, 2015–2017); various documentary films (e.g. “Ghana is the Future” (2014), and “Buy More Incense – British-Asian Musicians in the UK” (2000)). As an event organizer (e.g. a concert series at Schauspielhaus Zürich, 2018), curator of CD-Compilations (e.g. “Golden Beirut: New Sounds from Lebanon”, Outhere Records) and cultural funder (e.g. Musikbeirat Goethe Institut, 2018-2024; member of the jury of Schweizer Musikpreis, 2014–2018; board of trustees of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, 2002–2010).
Links:
Thomas Burkhalter: https://www.thomasburkhalter.ch/
Norient: https://norient.com/
Melodies In My Head: https://www.melodiesinmyhead.com/
Contradict: https://www.contradict-film.com/
Filmography
Contradict (2020), Recycled TV + Norient
Ghana Controversial – Music from the Ground Up (2019), Al Jazeera, Witness
Buy More Incense – British-Asian Musicians in the UK (2000)
Bücher
Burkhalter, Thomas; Beyer, Theresa; Liechti Hannes (Hrsg.). 2015. Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World. Bern: Norient Books
Burkhalter, Thomas. 2013. Local Music Scenes and Globalization – Transnational Platforms in Beirut. New York: Routledge.
Burkhalter, Thomas, Kay Dickinson, Ben Harbert (Herausgeber). 2013. The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press
Burkhalter, Thomas und Theresa Beyer (Hrsg.). 2012. Out of the Absurdity of Life – Globale Musik. Solothurn: Traversion
