Suhail Yusuf Khan

Suhail Yusuf, (stage name: Suhail Yusuf Khan), earned his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in 2024. He is a renowned hereditary sarangi player, a traditional North Indian bowed instrument, and the first Ph.D. recipient from the Mirāsī, a community of Muslim musicians in South Asia. His research effectively combines musical expertise with scholarly rigor, delving into the political and emotional dimensions of marginalized Muslim musician communities and social movements.

Dr. Yusuf has held music residencies at prestigious institutions such as UCLA, Dartmouth, MIT, Wellesley College, University of Pennsylvania and Oxford University. He served as the Visiting Assistant Professor of Music History at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music, Dance, and Theater from 2021 to 2024. With an international career spanning over twenty-five years in performance, alongside notable creative and scholarly contributions, he has participated in the production of over twenty music albums and secured a signing with Domino Records in the U.K.

Currently, Dr. Yusuf is a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, collaborating with Professor Dard Neuman on transcribing and analyzing performances from hereditary Mirāsī lineages. He is utilizing the interactive digital transcription method pioneered by Professor Neuman. In addition to this research, he is in the process of writing his first book, tentatively titled “Mirāsītude: Interfaith and Inclusive Ways of Resistance in North India and Beyond.”