Fugan Dineen is a musician, ethnomusicologist, educator, and Zen Buddhist priest whose work bridges performance, scholarship, and contemplative practice. He has taught drum set and percussion since 1997.
Fugan joined the music faculty at Boston College in 2015, where he teaches courses on global music cultures and serves as Master Musician in Residence for percussion with Astaza!, the college’s Middle Eastern ensemble. In 2022, he became a lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches an annual seminar on Indian music and rhythmic design—his primary scholarly and musical focus.
As a drummer and percussionist, Fugan has recorded and toured widely with artists across a range of traditions—from West African, Middle Eastern, and Indian musics to punk, rock, funk, and jazz. Artists he’s worked with include Lemonheads, Miranda Warning, Beth Bahia Cohen, Danny Tucker, Bala Tounkara, Zilzala, Herb Palmaroy, and Bruno Rayburg. He also appears regularly as a guest artist and soloist at festivals and cultural events.
Fugan’s compositional work includes collaborations with dance companies such as Margo Parsons Ballet, The Dance Collective, Navarasa Dance Theater, Kim Root, and InDance. He spent four years performing in South America, including two touring with Bahia’s premier carnival band. During a year-long stay in West Africa, Fugan worked with a collective dedicated to preserving music and dance traditions in Sierra Leone. While conducting dissertation research in South India, Fugan collaborated extensively with local musicians and dancers.
