As a trombone player, his first fieldwork focused on the lives and repertoires of Romani brass bands in North Macedonia where he explored the issues of identity and nationalism surrounding music in the southern Balkans. For his PhD thesis in ethnomusicology/anthropology at the University of Paris Nanterre, he spent several years in central India studying the relationship between a village pantheon and the musical repertoire dedicated to it during possession rituals. He has returned regularly to this region since the 2000s. His research also focuses on the political issues surrounding music and the potential applications of ethnomusicology. Thus, based on surveys conducted in the neighbourhoods adjacent to the University of Paris Nanterre, he has been developing the action-research project 'The Musical Heritage of the Inhabitants" since 2010 and co-produced the web documentary film 'Inouï'. Between 2022 and 2024, he was seconded to the Musée de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris where he was involved in the reorganisation of the non-European collections (a project called 'Le Tout-monde en musique'). This museum experience gave him the opportunity to embark on new research about the musik bambu orchestras of northern Sulawesi, a reinvention of colonial brass bands in Indonesia.
Nicolas Prévôt is a Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Paris Nanterre and a member of the LESC-CREM Centre for Research in Ethnomusicology.
