Humboldt Fellows at the Institute

Toyin Samuel Ajose is a Senior Lecturer and former head of the Department of Music, at the University of Ibadan. He obtained a doctorate in Ethnomusicology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His research, which intersects music, religion/spirituality, popular culture and migration in Africa and Diaspora has been published in the Journal of African Cultural Studies, Muziki, African Musicology Online, Religions, Journal of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity, Journal of Association of Nigerian Musicologists (JANIM), Journal of Religion and Culture, Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies.  Dr Ajose is a recipient of some scholarly awards including the A.G. Leventis Postdoctoral fellowship at SOAS, London, American Council of Learned Societies Postdoctoral fellowship under the African Humanities Program. He serves as a Member of Council for the Society for Ethnomusicologists (2022–2025);  President of the Guild of Organists of Nigeria; Public Relations Officer for the Association of Nigerian Musicologists(ANIM) and the Music Director of the Chapel of the Resurrection, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Projects: Black History Month Würzburg (Symposium & Concert) 7 February 2025: Interculturality through Chorality: Black/African Choral Music in Perspective.

Alma Bejtullahu completed her studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her research focuses on the music of minorities from the perspective of ethnicity, gender, or migration experience, with an emphasis on the Slovenian situation. She has also researched the amateur musical practices of Albanians in the former Yugoslavia. Before joining the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg as a postdoctoral fellow, she was part of the research team at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Arts, on the project Romani Musicians in Slovenia, funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. Previously, she was one of the founding team members of the Music and Minorities Research Center at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Her professional experience also includes radio and television journalism and audiovisual editing. Alma Bejtullahu is an accomplished singer in a multi-part vocal group, an active musician and organizer of music events of minorities with migrant background in Slovenia. She is the author of several articles and the book "Musical and Dance Practices of Women with Migrant Background" published by the Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts. During her postdoctoral fellowship, she is researching the Albanian community in Germany and its diverse musical practices.

Loab Hammoud is an ethnomusicologist and Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg, where he is researching identity formation in musical performance and the role of music in the lives of Syrian musicians as they adapt and rebuild their homes in Germany. Previously, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Haifa, where his research focused on Arab music education and performance among Israeli Jews. His doctoral research focused on the history of Arab art music in Mandatory Palestine and among Palestinian musicians in the Diaspora. Loab plays and teaches the oud and Arabic music theory.