Yesterday (in
late April) it briefly snowed here in Bergen, Norway, where winter tends to be
very long, but the fleeting Nordic spring has nearly arrived and the brilliant
summer will soon be here with its midnight sun. I eagerly look forward to
another visit to China soon to collaborate with Professor Jiaxing Xie, Director
of the Chinese Music Research Institute, China Conservatory, Beijing, with whom
I am co-authoring the book A Global View
of Music Education. In June are three other music conferences and meetings
in Vilnius, London, and Oslo . . .
- I will lead a writing workshop, “Development and Revision of Draft Chapters for NNME Book (Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe: Twenty Years of the Nordic Network for Music Education),” Nordic Network for Music Education coordinators meeting, at the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania (June 2-3, 2017).
- Organizing Committee Member, and Paper presentation, co-authored with Prof. Masafumi Ogawa (Yokohama National University, Japan), “Comparative Music Education and Social Theory: Reflections on Scholarly Comparisons of Japan and the United States,” 10th Biennial International Symposium on the Sociology of Music Education, at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, London (June 12, 2017).
- Senior Researcher paper presentation, “Mapping Non-Western Contributions to Music Education Philosophy,” Advisory Board member (vicarious), Grieg Research School conference, in Oslo, Norway (June 16, 2017).
Also, I
have been planning with Torunn Bakken Hauge for the hosting of a conference in
Bergen in the Autumn, where Alexandra Kertz-Welzel will be one of our keynote
speakers:
- 20th Anniversary Intensive Master Seminar, Nordic Network for Music Education (Bergen, Norway, 30 October- 3 November, 2017).
Sometimes musicians
take themselves too seriously, so pictured above is an old stone sculpture of a
donkey playing a hurdy-gurdy, atop a pedestal. I took this photo a few weeks ago at the edge of
the great cathedral in Chartres, near Paris. (Update, 5/21/17: I am also attaching a new photo of the beautiful cherry blossoms in Bergen.; Update, 6/15/2017, also, a photo from the Closing Plenary Session of the ISSME meeting in London).
