Graeme Gibson

Graeme Gibson is a man of many talents. He curates an online museum of more than four hundred world music instruments, plays many of those instruments himself, designs and builds others, and conducts copious research on music traditions worldwide. Because “world music involves numerous traditions [up] to contemporary musics,” Graeme says, “I prefer to think of it as a spectrum that includes numerous genres.” He sees parallels between the spectrum of world music and the autism spectrum, where he states that he “also found that everyone is different from their case, to my case and so on. I do agree with the term ‘spectrum,’ ” he adds, “but we still have lots to learn.” Living with “classic autism” all his life, Graeme has faced formidable challenges. Yet he would not rid himself of his condition even given the chance: “Some symptoms I would like to have gone, like stress triggers and so on, but I fear in the end my music may be lost too.”