Honorary Professorship in Hong Kong

It was a great pleasure to officially learn today that I have been appointed Honorary Professor with the Department of Culture and Creative Arts at The Education University of Hong Kong.

This university has become one of the world's leading institutions in the field of education, and it is especially making important contributions in East Asia, where education has long been highly valued.

Here is a link to the university’s website: https://www.eduhk.hk/main/

I eagerly look forward to further collaborations with the outstanding colleagues in Hong Kong.

Tabula Rasa Choir Peace Program Tour

Professional choir Tabula Rasa will perform a series of concerts at three locations in western Norway in mid-October, 2019. The program is entitled Peace (“Fred” in Norwegian), and features the theme of sacred music facing war memorials. The program is designed to stimulate reflection on the consequences of war and whether it is enough to dream of peace.

The program features music by Orlando de Lassus, Arnold Schönberg, Arvo Pärt, Frank Havrøy, Jake Runestad, and the premiere performance of a new piece by Tord Kalvenes. 

This project is supported by the Norwegian Arts Council, the Norwegian Composers Association, and the Norwegian Composers Fund. 

Here is the schedule and other details (in Norwegian): 

14. september
Krigminnene på Fedje, minikonsert kl 15
Fedjekyrkja, konsert kl 17

15. september 
Nordsjøfartmuseet i Tælavåg, minikonsert kl 15
Sund kyrkje, konsert kl 18

22. september 
Herdla museum, minikonsert kl 15, 15.30 og 16. 
Herdla kyrkje, konsert kl 18


Musikalsk leder: Arild Rohde 

Sopran: Rikke Lina Sorell Matthiesen, Sigrun Jørdre
Alt: Elise Thorgersen Varne, Zsuzsa Zseni
Tenor: Tord Kalvenes, Arild Rohde
Bass: Charles Lindberg, David Hebert

Regi: Ingrid Askvik

Lys: Matias Askvik

Non-Western Educational Philosophy

In November 2019 we will have a new PhD course in Bergen entitled Non-Western Educational Philosophy and Policy. This intensive interdisciplinary course is offered within our PhD program in Bildung and Pedagogical Practices (European educational philosophy), but it is also open to doctoral students from other universities for ECTS (European) credits, requiring two weeks of residency in Bergen, Norway.

Below is the course description and a link for additional information.

This course enables educational theories and practices in contemporary Europe to be more deeply understood in relation to non-Western educational philosophies and policies. The focus of the course is on exploring intellectual traditions and sociocultural practices that shape school education outside of Europe, in the continents of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. It offers a survey of non-European philosophical writings on education, including such major historical theorists as Confucius, Ibn Khaldun, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ghandi, Tagore, Nishida, Said, and Freire, as well as intercultural observations of notable contemporary educational and social theorists: Michael Peters, Martha Nussbaum, Yusef Waghid, Amartya Sen, Timothy Reagan, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Joel Spring, Nicholas Burbules, Carlos Alberto Torres, Fred Dervin, Mark Halstead, and David Killick. The course will especially emphasize discussion of East Asian schools, due to both the distinctive philosophies and recent economic and educational achievements in China and Japan. Students will also explore the implications of non-western philosophical traditions for their particular school subject areas of specialization (e.g. arts education, social studies, citizenship education, physical education, etc.).

Further details: https://www.hvl.no/en/studies-at-hvl/study-programmes/course/29/phd911

Sharq Taronalari XII in Samarkand

In late August I will be visiting spectacular Samarkand, Uzbekistan to give a speech for the musicology symposium affiliated with the 12^th International Music Festival Sharq Taronalari.

This year’s symposium is called Prospects for the Development of Traditional Musical Art of the Eastern People, and my speech, entitled “World Music Pedagogy: Presenting Central Asian Traditions to the World”, is related to some ongoing writings for the World Music Pedagogy book series on Routledge.

The purpose of my presentation is to introduce Campbell’s WMP model and demonstrate how this innovative approach may be applied so Central Asian music traditions are effectively shared with foreign audiences, thereby broadening global appreciation and understanding of Asian musical heritage.

The Sharq Taronalari festival attracts extraordinarily skilled traditional musicians from across the world, as well as prominent music festival managers and ethnomusicologists. I am very thankful for the opportunity to be invited to this great event and look forward to meeting creative musicians from Uzbekistan and other countries. 

Link to the festival website:

https://www.sharq-taronalari.uz/

Video from a previous Sharq Taronalari festival (starting from 5:35):

https://youtu.be/KfFVPPiQj6I?t=334

Here is a link for video from the 2019 opening ceremony, with brilliant music and dance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt_rUSPJlgE&feature=youtu.be&t=4320

International Cultural Policy Courses

Across the past two weeks, PhD students from several countries joined the course I taught for Bergen Summer Research School entitled Cultural Policy: Arts Heritage and Sustainability. We included some excellent guest lecturers, such as Mary Miller (Director of Bergen National Opera) and Norwegian scholars Tore Sætersdal (anthropologist) and Ole Marius Hylland (policy analyst).

The PhD students came from Germany, Brazil/Sweden, Canada, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa. We are now developing a book based on these two international cultural policy PhD courses held in 2018 and 2019.

Links for more information:

https://www.uib.no/en/rs/bsrs

http://sociomusicology.blogspot.com/2018/10/sustainable-development-and-cultural.html

Next week I teach a course entitled Arts Policy in the Twenty-First Century for law students in China’s leading law faculty, China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), Beijing.

In the Autumn, a new PhD course that I developed will finally be offered in Bergen at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. It is entitled Non-Western Educational Philosophy and Policy.

Link for more information:

https://www.hvl.no/en/studies-at-hvl/study-programmes/course/phd911

PLEASE NOTE: PhD students from other universities are welcome to take these exciting intensive courses in Bergen -- in English -- for ECTS European transfer credits. 

Although music, education, and global studies continue to be the major themes in my research and teaching, I am increasingly interested in devising improvements to the ways that governments support arts and cultural heritage through various kinds of institutions.

Funding Received by Nordic Network for Music Education

We are pleased to report that the Nordic Network for Music Education (NNME) has just been awarded full funding for this year from the Nordic government Nordplus program to support its intensive international Master course and exchange of Master students and lecturers across the 8 Nordic and Baltic countries. 

We are very thankful to Nordplus for a 44% increase on our budget from the previous year, which we will use wisely to ensure a strong future for music education in Northern Europe. Click HERE for more information on the NNME.

Our project for 2019 is entitled Digital Competence and Digitized Musical Heritage. This new project extends on the 20+ years of NNME history documented in our new book on Routledge, Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe.

Click HERE for more information on the book.

Intercultural Music Research

It is a pleasure to be part of two intercultural music research panels with excellent scholars at international conferences in Bergen and Malmo in early summer, 2019.

Panel Chair/Organizer, “Chinese Music” (with Directors of Confucius Institutes in Norway and Denmark). Paper presentation, “Musicians’ Reflections on the Teaching of Traditional Chinese Instruments for Prominent Conservatories in Europe and China,” Nordic Association for China Studies (NACS) international conference, University of Bergen, Norway (June 13-14, 2019, PLANNED).

Panelist, “Indigeneity in the 21st century classroom: Reconstruction and reconciliation in Scandinavia and North America” (with Eva Saether, David Johnson, Ylva Hofvander Trulsson, and Patrick Schmidt), European Association for Music in Schools (EAS) annual international conference, Malmo Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden (May 16-18, 2019, PLANNED).

Displayed is a photo I took of a lesson on the Chinese guqin late last year.