Biography
Thomas Burkhalter, PhD, is an anthropologist, multidisciplinary artist, and writer from Bern, Switzerland. He is the founder and director of Norient (Norient.com – winner Special Prizes for Music 2025 – Swiss Music Prizes) and the Norient Festival.
Currently, his 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. He is a co-editor of the 2025 released book Home is Where the Heart Strives (Norient Books). 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). He currently serves on the board of the ERC/UKRI-funded project Beyond 1932 (King’s College London), Echographies: Journal of Sound Ethnography (Chicago/Zürich), and C:Pop – Transdisciplinary Research Center for Popular Music Cultures and Creative Economies (University of Paderborn). His work combines personal and international perspectives, often in close collaboration with artists and thinkers worldwide.
Burkhalter has led various research projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and taught at universities in Berlin (Humboldt), Fribourg, Oldenburg, Paderborn, Karlsruhe, Basel, and Bern. He has written academic and journalistic articles and produced radio features on music in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe for 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 the Prix Europa in 2017.
He works across various 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); and numerous documentary films (e.g. "Ghana is the Future" (2014) and "Buy More Incense – British-Asian Musicians in the UK" (2000)). He has also contributed as an event organizer (e.g. 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; jury member of the Schweizer Musikpreis, 2014–2018; board of trustees of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, 2002–2010).