Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh

He studied piano and Western music at the Sulcz Cons, in Cairo (1941–44), then went to the U.S. in 1950 on a Fulbright fellowship, studying with Aaron Copland and Irving Fine at the Berkshire Music Center at Tangle-wood and taking graduate degrees from the New England Cons, of Music and Brandeis Univ. In 1961 he became a naturalized American citizen. He taught at Haile Selassie Univ. in Ethiopia (1962–64), Howard Univ. (1966–69), and Kent State Univ. (from 1969), where he later also was co-director of its Center for the Study of World Musics (from 1979). His compositions reveal Afro-Arab influences, especially in their rhythmic structures and their incorporation of unusual percussive devices. He published The Derabucca: Hand Techniques in the Art of Drumming (1965).