Dr Graeme Counsel is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and holds positions in the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, and Student and Scholarly Services. His research projects and publications examine the nexus of popular music and politics, drawing from the disciplines of Ethnomusicology and Cultural Studies.
His research interests encompass African, trans-Atlantic and Asiatic cultures, and focus on music, culture and society in Africa.
Dr Counsel's post-doctoral research includes over two years’ fieldwork in West Africa. From 2008 to 2013 he received three Major Research Project Awards through the Endangered Archives Programme. This funding enabled the collection, preservation and archiving of the Republic of Guinea’s national sound archive, a collection of over 7,500 songs recorded during Guinea's 1st Republic (1958-1984). One of the largest digital collections of African music in the world, his archival project included the complete catalogue of the Syliphone recording label, the flagship of the Guinean recording industry. Following its completion, the Endangered Archive Programme partnered with the British Library, the Bureau Guineen du Droit d'Auteur, and Sterns Music to enable his complete archival collection to be available to the public via the British Library Sounds website.
Dr Counsel’s digital archive projects were conducted with the cooperation of Guinea’s Ministry of Culture et Patrimonie, Ministry of Communication, and Ministry of Tourism, and were exhibited at the National Museum in Conakry as part of Guinea's 50th anniversary of independence celebrations. In recognition of his research and contribution to the preservation of national culture, the Guinean government awarded him their highest research honour, the gold medal of the Palme Academique en Or. He was the first non-African to receive this award.
The British Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale de Guinee and the archives of Radio Television Guinee hold his archival collections, and Dr Counsel has presented his research projects in a wide variety of fora. He was invited to present at the first international symposium on African popular music: “Revisiter l'histoire des musiques modernes d'Afrique: Retour aux sources”, held in Bamako, Mali. He has presented papers for numerous African Studies conferences and has lectured subjects on African music, World music, Ethnomusicology and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. He has conducted research in Africa with the National Council for Arts and Culture in The Gambia, The West African Research Center in Senegal and The Direction Nationale de la Culture in Mali. In addition to his publications, Dr Counsel has compiled five double-volume compact discs of Guinean music, with Folk Roots magazine naming his compilation, “Authenticite - The Syliphone years. Guinea's Orchestres Nationaux and Federaux 1965-1980”, as the best packaged album of the year. He has also compiled the first discographies of the shellac and vinyl recording output of the nations of Guinea, Mali, The Gambia, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau and Mauritania, and constructed the first discographies of many early West African recording labels. In Australia he has presented African music programmes on public radio and provided commentary for the BBC, ABC, SBS, and African television, radio and print media.
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Honours, Awards and Fellowships
Major Research Project Award (in partnership with The British Library)
Major Research Project Award (in partnership with The British Library)
Republique de Guinee (Guinea's highest academic honour)
Ministere de la Culture des Arts et Loisirs, Republique de Guinee
Major Research Project Award (in partnership with The British Library)
Australian government
University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne
Monash University
Credentials
Positions
Honorary
Melbourne Conservatorium Of Music
Casual
Arts
Casual
Melbourne Conservatorium Of Music
Member
International Association for the Study of Popular Music
Editor
International Editorial Board for the The Australasian Review of African Studies
Member
Australia Western Sahara Association (Victoria)
Member
Mande Studies Association
Secretary, Treasurer And Website Manager
African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific
Education
Graduate Certificate in University Teaching
University of Melbourne
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Melbourne
Master of Music
University of Melbourne
Bachelor of Arts with Honours
Monash University