From 2-22 September 2022, students and doctoral students from the Institute of Musicology of the University of Warsaw under the supervision of Professor Bożena Muszkalska, PhD, together with staff and students from the Institute of Musicology of the University of Vienna, conducted ethnomusicological research in Malawi. The idea of a joint expedition was born during Dr August Schmidhofer’s teaching visit to our university in January 2020 as part of the ERASMUS PLUS programme.
The research covered areas inhabited by the Sena, Mang’anja, Ngoni and Chewa ethnic groups in southern and central Malawi.
Among other things, music accompanying work, healing rituals, mask dances performed by members of secret societies and learning in traditional girls’ schools was recorded.
A huge amount of audio and video material was collected thanks to the invaluable help of Dr Moya Malamusi from Chileka, an ethnologist and musician, who organised meetings with the musicians, often in hard-to-reach villages, and served as an interpreter with knowledge of the local languages.
