Nicholas Ragheb

Nicholas Ragheb is a Ph.D. student in Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is currently researching the liturgical music tradition of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, and the relationship between the voice, musical aesthetics, and religious ideology. Prior to this, Nicholas received a master's degree in Ethnomusicology from the University of Texas at Austin, coinciding with the completion of a master’s report on Turkish drum making practices. He has also served as Percussion director for the UCSB Middle East Ensemble and the University of Texas Middle East Ensemble “Bereket,” and he is an avid performer of Turkish and Arab reed flutes (known as “nay” or “ney”), as well as the Turkish darbuka drum.