• Biography
• Education
• Research and publications
• Commercial releases
• Research recordings
• DVD Screening Schedule
• Invited Lectures, Workshops and Research Papers
• Nadopasana Thodupuzha
• Selected stage appearances
• Christianity in India through art
• Oral history project
• Studies on Joseph J. Palackal
• Scholarships/Awards/Honorary mention
• Interviews/Speeches/Press reports
• Letters and Personal Communications
• Travels
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• Personal motto

Joseph J. Palackal is an Indic musicologist, singer and composer. He is also the Founder-President of the Christian Musicological Society of India and Nadopasana Thodupuzha. Dr. Palackal holds degrees in theology, psychology, Indian classical music and musicology. The master’s thesis he wrote at Hunter College, New York (1995), became a foundational work for launching a Christian musicology of India. Later, his dissertation on the Syriac chants in South India, at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2005) became the first doctoral study of a Christian music genre in India. Dr. Palackal is the author of articles on Indian Christian music in several international journals and three encyclopedias, including the prestigious New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Oxford Music Online) and the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (New York). Recently, he contributed a chapter to The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities (Oxford University Press).

Dr. Palackal is the lead singer in more than forty releases in five languages, including Sanskrit and Syriac. To his credit are the first LP record of Christian Bhajans in Malayalam (Deccan Records, Bangalore, 1979) and the first commercial CD of Syriac chants of the Syro-Malabar Church Qambel Maran: Syriac Chants from South India (PAN Records, Netherlands, 2002); both albums are landmarks in the history of Christian music in India. Dr. Palackal is the first Indian to perform in an Off Broadway show in New York by singing a Christian devotional song in Hindi. Other performance venues include Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, Princeton University and Columbia University. His internationally acclaimed documentary film, Kerala, the Cradle of Christianity in South Asia, is a pioneering attempt to educate the Western world about the uniqueness of Indian Christianity. In 2006, Dr. Palackal embarked on a mission of introducing Indian Christian art to the international community.

Commissioned by the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Church, Dr. Palackal, along with George Thaila, composed the English text of the Solemn High Mass of the Syro-Malabar Church for the use of Syro-Malabar Catholics in the English-speaking parts of the world. Dr. Palackal made his broadcasting debut at All India Radio, Bangalore. The Vatican Radio documented his speaking and singing voice in 2010. Such leading libraries as The Library of Congress (USA), the Harvard University Library, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and the British Library have started cataloging his works.

Dr. Palackal hails from the family of Palackal Thoma Malpan (ca. 1780-1841), founder of the first indigenous religious congregation of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate; he is a member of the same Congregation. Currently, Dr. Palackal is completing his book, Syriac Chants in South India: Toward Remapping the Musical Geography of a Country.

Education

1. Ph. D. (Ethnomusicology), Graduate Center of the City University of New York, May 2005.
2. M. A. (Ethnomusicology), Hunter College-CUNY, May 1995.
3. B. P. A. (Hindustani Classical Music, vocal), The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, May 1986.
4. M. A. (Psychology), The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, November 1984.
5. B. Th. (Theology), Dharmaram Pontifical Institute, Bangalore, January 1980.
6. B. A. (Psychology), Bangalore University, December 1974.