Patrick Kersalé

Last update: December 6, 2023

Born in 1959, Patrick Kersalé is both an ethnomusicologist and a music archaeologist. He has spent the past 30 years traveling around the world (primarily in West Africa, Southeast Asia, India, Nepal and Europe) in order to seek traditional music at risk of disappearing in order to preserve the memory and to develop programs for cultural conservation.

He has carried out many missions in Cambodia in order to collect audiovisual footage at archaeological sites, and by the music of the aboriginal peoples of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri. Since 2009 he studies the Angkorian musical instruments, through the iconography, inscriptions and archaeological objects. Based on that research, he has rebuilt extinct instruments from the 7th to 16th centuries. Several kinds of harps, zithers, cymbals, drums, trumpets, and conchs have thus literally been brought back to life.

He is also the author of numerous CDs, mostly on the music of ethnic minorities, several books with CD on oral traditions, documentaries, educational DVDs, and articles.