Amnon Shiloah studied ethnomusicology at The Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1960), and received his PhD in musicology and oriental sciences at the Sorbonne in 1963. After heading the folklore department of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (1965-9), he joined the musicology department at The Hebrew University, where he taught throughout the remainder of his career. He served as director of the Jewish Music Research Center (1969-1971) and head of the Institute of Languages, Literatures and Arts (1980-84). In 1986 he received the Jerusalem Prize and in 1995 the Prix des Muses. His early scholarly activities involved Arab music theory in the Jewish and Arab communities of the Middle East. His field of interests includes the diverse multiculturalism in Israel's Sephardi and Eastern Jewish communities; Jewish music, its history and its methodologies in Israel, France, Britain and the USA.]