Svanibor PETTAN
Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Ljubljana
Ph.D., University of Maryland; M.A., University of Ljubljana; B.A., University of Zagreb

 

Prior to his retirement and move to Sri Lanka in 2026, Svanibor Pettan was Professor and Chair in ethnomusicology at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His academic degrees are from the Universities of Zagreb, Croatia (BA), Ljubljana, Slovenia (MA), and Maryland, USA (PhD). His principal research topics are music and politics on a war-peace continuum, music and minorities, applied ethnomusicology, and institutional history of ethnomusicology, while his fieldwork sites include Central and Southeastern Europe, Australia, Egypt, Norway, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and USA. His latest two major projects are Music and Ethnic Minorities: (Trans)cultural Dynamics in Slovenia After the Year 1991 and Romani Musicians in Slovenia: Social Status, Cultural Practices, and Interactions.  

His professional career includes full-time posts as radio editor, as scholar in a research institute, and as professor at a music academy, in a department of ethnology and cultural anthropology, and in a department of musicology. Within the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD, he served as national representative of Croatia and Slovenia, co-founder and Chair of the Study Group on Music and Minorities, founder and Chair of the Study Group on Applied Ethnomusicology, member of the Executive Board, Secretary General, Vice-President, and President. He was a member of the Council of the Society for Ethnomusicology, and President of the Cultural and Ethnomusicological Society Folk Slovenia. 

Prof. Pettan was a visiting professor at the universities of Zagreb, Oslo, Sarajevo, Washington, Illinois, Pula, Tainan National University of the Arts, Split, Maribor, California at Berkeley, Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Visual and Performing Arts Colombo, and Zürich; visiting scholar at the universities of Wesleyan, Brown, Chicago, Griffith, and Ondokuz Mayis Samsun; and external examiner at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick.

He gave more than 150 invited lectures at universities or research institutes in 45 countries including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Ghana, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Montenegro, Nepal, North Macedonia, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Taiwan, Türkiye, Ukraine, UK, USA, and Vietnam; and was among the key organizers of many international scholarly gatherings world-wide. 

His service in past and present editorial or advisory boards of scholarly publications include Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World (UK), Colloquium (Türkiye), Ethnomusicology Forum (UK), Glasba v šoli in vrtcu (Slovenia), Journal of Research in Music (Sri Lanka), Journal of Urban Culture Research (Thailand), Music and Arts in Action (UK), Music & Minorities (Austria), Muzika (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Muzikološki zbornik (Slovenia), Narodna umjetnost (Croatia), Pax Sonoris (Russia), Sound Ethnographies (Italy), TNNUA Artistica (Taiwan), Tradicija ir darbartis (Lithuania), Traditiones (Slovenia), The World of Music (Germany), and Translingual Discourses in Ethnomusicology (Austria). He also serves on several institutional advisory boards, including that of MMRC.  

Dr. Pettan is the recipient of awards from the Musicological Society of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, ICTMD Study Group on Music of the Turkic-speaking World, Türksoy, Faculty of Arts (Life Achievement Award), University of Ljubljana (Golden Plaque), and the Slovenian Research Agency (Excellence in Science). From 2022 on he is a member of Academia Europaea.

 

Selected publications:

Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia (ed., 1998), Music and Music Research in Croatia (= The World of Music 3, ed., 1998), Glasba in manjšine/Music and Minorities (co-ed., 2001), Kosovo Roma (2001), Roma muzsikusok koszovóban: Kölcsönhatás és kreativitás/Rom Musicians in Kosovo: Interaction and Creativity (2002), “Male, Female, and Beyond in Culture and Music of the Roma in Kosovo”, in Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean (2003), “Balkan Boundaries and How to Cross Them: A Postlude” in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene (2007), Applied Ethnomusicology (= Musicological Annual44/1, ed., 2008), “Music in War, Music for Peace: Experiences in Applied Ethnomusicology” in Music in Conflict (2010), Lambada na Kosovu (2010), Applied Ethnomusicology: Historical and Contemporary Approaches (co-ed, 2010), Etnomuzikologija na razpotju (2011), Kosovo Through the Eyes of Local Romani (Gypsy) Musicians (2015), Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology (co-ed., 2015), Music, Sound and Ecology (= Musicological Annual 52/2, ed., 2016),  "Negotiating the Personal and Professional: Ethnomusicologists and the Uncomfortable Truths" (co-auth., 2016), Theory, Method, Sustainability, and Conflict (co-ed., 2019), De-Colonisation, Heritage, and Advocacy (co-ed., 2019), Public Ethnomusicology, Education, Archives, and Commerce (co-ed., 2019), Music of Minorities in National Contexts: Ten Research Models (2019), Music and Ethnic Minorities: (Trans)Cultural Dynamics in Slovenia after the year 1991 (ed., 2021), Celebrating the International Council for Traditional Music: Reflections on the First Seven Decades (co-ed., 2022), and Biti etnomuzikolog/Being an Ethnomusicologist (2025).