Here is a
link to an article in The Norwegian
American, a publication with a 130-year history connected to the community
of Norwegians and their descendants in the US:
I was pleasantly surprised to see this article published on Christmas Day, 2019. How did it
happen? While at a music conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan earlier this year
I was approached by a Geneva-based author named Marit Fosse who works closely with diplomats. She interviewed me for an article that I understand will appear in a few different publications, including both this one and a magazine for
embassy-affiliated personnel. Hopefully the articles will generate broader interest in the social impact of music.
Across the past year we have received some excellent proposals for our new book series Deep Soundings: The Lexington Series in Historical Ethnomusicology (Rowman & Littlefield). This exciting series will soon include some unique books on musical developments in South Africa and Malaysia, as well as music-related cultural diplomacy in many locations worldwide. More details will be posted here as the individual book projects near completion and are prepared for publication.
It was a
great pleasure this week to give an invited lecture entitled “Language and Cultural Policy: Rethinking Music’s Significance,” for
the International Law Summit in Bergen on The
Language and Law. The law professors there, many of whom were from China,
showed great interest in the topic and had excellent suggestions.
I am now
developing a book with contributors from several countries that addresses how government
policies can effectively support the sustainability of music traditions through
various public institutions. This will most likely become part of the Deep Soundings book series
with Rowman
& Littlefield (Lexington), but I also mentioned it in my discussion
with Routledge editors who had arranged a recent meeting with me in Bergen. Although
the book is still under development, we have likely contributions from China, Vietnam,
Sweden, Poland, Guyana, Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, and other countries.
Public
institutions, such as schools, universities, concert halls, museums, and
galleries - as well as memorials and protected heritage sites - play an important
role in ensuring that the arts and cultural heritage can remain viable for
future generations. This is not only a local or national concern, but a global one, as recognized by UNESCO and other organizations. However, some kinds of laws and programs certainly function
better than others, and there is a need for more robust, critical and
comparative studies in this field. Below is a photo from my speech at the International Law Summit:
Click HERE
for a law-related article that I developed with Finnish scholar Marja Heimonen in an earlier
phase of my career, andHERE for a later article we developed. Some of the earliest laws in Northern Europe were written in runes on stone surfaces such as this one, which I photographed last week as part of some research on Viking Age and early Medieval times:
The
scholarly journal World of Music
will soon be publishing my review of a unique book entitled The Mystery of Music: An Exploration
Centered on the Lives of Thirty Ancient Musicians (by Lewis Holmes, CEK
Publishing, 2018).
Author Lewis
Holmes, an interdisciplinary scientist, participated in the Historical
Ethnomusicology section of the Society for Ethnomusicology, during the period
in which I led this group with Jonathan McCollum, and in his book develops some important extensions on
theories in this specialized field. Holmes spent many years drawing on
knowledge from an array of academic fields (archaeology, history, musicology, etc.)
to produce the material in this book, which I think is written with unusual clarity and is likely to be of interest to musicians and music teachers working in all kinds of settings, from primary school through
university.
Below are
links for more information, and I will soon include a link here to the review
when it is published in The World of
Music toward the end of 2019:
The Nordic
Network for Music Education (NNME) will soon offer its 2019 joint intensive Master
course, held in Sweden this year at the Malmo Academy of Music (Lund University). Professors and students will
participate from the postgraduate music education programs in all eight Nordic
and Baltic countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, and Lithuania, with financial support from Nordplus. The theme for this year is Digital Competence and Music
Beyond Europe.
This year
the keynote speakers include Anna Houmann, Markus Tullberg, Alex Ruthmann, Eva
Saether, David Johnson, Adam Switala, and others. There will be a special
presentation by Chinese musicians from the Music Confucius Institute, Royal
Academy of Music, Copenhagen. There will also be several performances of
traditional music from Scandinavia and an array of Middle Eastern cultures.
Students
will also present their ongoing thesis research projects, which cover a vast
array of topics, and receive European university credits (ECTS). We are confident that by the end of the course, the
participating postgraduate students will have a better understanding of the
state of music education across Northern Europe, a more fully developed plan
for their own research, and a stronger sense of how digital competence and diverse world music cultures may be meaningfully introduced to their own students.
Click HERE to
access the program for the NNME 2019 course in Malmo, Sweden.
Displayed
here is a poster designed by Eva Saether and the other conference hosts in
Malmo.
East Asia has long been one of my geographic areas of specialization, but recently personal interests have extended to the southern parts of China (Quanzhou: Nanyin music and the maritime Silk Road) and even into the southernmost part of this region: Vietnam.
It has been a
great experience to visit Saigon for the second time this year for an
additional period of fieldwork research on both local Mekong Delta traditional
music and intercultural experimental music (combining Vietnamese and avant garde western electronic music
techniques).
Vietnam is
experiencing rapid social and economic changes across recent years and is a nation
with rich and unique cultural heritage, including a fascinating array of
musical instruments. I have also been learning much from serving as a reviewer for the new PhD dissertation “The Choreography
of Gender in Traditional Vietnamese Music” by Nguyễn, Thanh Thủy, a master performer of the dan tranh
who later studied artistic research in music at Lund University, Sweden.
The outstanding Swedish research team that I am working with in Vietnam is making
high-quality sound recordings and will be releasing a full professional album and producing various publications from this project.
P.S. Pictured above is an idyllic image of the Vietnamese countryside, but most of this project is spent in a recording studio in the densely populated, noisy, and rapidly-growing Ho Chi Minh City.
There have already
been some positive reviews of our book from 2018, Music Glocalization: Heritage and
Innovation in a Digital Age, and it is cited in recent publications by
scholars in Cyprus, Poland, Norway, and the Czech Republic. Additionally, my co-editor Mikolaj Rykowski has been favorably reviewed for a promotion, with this book as a significant part of his portfolio.
Below are
some excerpts from the recent reviews of our book:
According to leading glocalization theorist Victor Roudometof, “The volume displays
remarkable thematic coherence, which allows the editors to use the material
presented within individual chapters in order to build broader theoretical
arguments. In its conception and execution, this volume is a noteworthy effort
to insert the problematic of glocalization into the disciplines of musicology
and ethnomusicology … The author advances the notion of being ‘glocalimbodied’ (2018:6), a neologism that combines ‘glocal’ with ‘limbo’ in order to make
sense of an unbalanced condition attributed to glocal forces as well as the
necessity of situating the body within the newfound condition of personalized
branding strategies … The editors’ synthesis of the volume’s research is highly
original and represents a good point of departure for thinking further about
the uses of glocalization in musicology” (Victor Roudometof, Ethnomusicology
Review, 2019).
According
to Professor Wai-Chung Ho (Hong Kong), “This book offers a critical study of
the undertheorized concept of glocalization, intertwining the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ forces between music and society, both past and present … the book
provides a fresh amalgam of perspectives that address music-related subjects.
It also covers diverse topics from theoretical perspectives on local and global
identities of music, art music composition in the digital age, glocalized music
beyond Europe, and glocalized music professions… This book is the first
comprehensive account of how the notion of ‘glocalization’ may be useful in
rethinking nationality in music and the use of local musical traditions that
serve as a means for global strategies. It reconstructs the emergence of music
in the global context and provides an innovative framework for studying how
glocalization transforms aesthetic hierarchies and cultural transmissions, thus
breaking new ground for musicology and the sociology of music” (Wai-Chung Ho, Cambridge
Scholars blog, 2018).
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.
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
UPDATE: This PhD course was offered entirely online in late May and June 2020. It was a great success, with very positive evaluations and strong student projects that will likely lead to publications. The course will be offered again two years later, in 2022. Please plan to join us!
In late May 2020, we will offer a new PhD course in Bergen entitled Non-Western Educational Philosophy and Policy. This intensive interdisciplinary
course is situated 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.
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, Ibn Rushd, Ghandi, Zera Yacob, Tagore, Fanon, Nishida, Said, and Freire, as well as
intercultural observations of notable contemporary educational and social
theorists: Michael Peters, Martha Nussbaum, Nuraan Davids, Yusef Waghid, Carl Mika, Amartya Sen, Seyla Benhabib, 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.).
As discussions linked
below demonstrate, at many institutions there has been some debate surrounding
the movement to “decolonize the curriculum”, but in my view the most valid
argument for offering a course on these thinkers is that it enables us to better
understand intellectual heritage from many parts of the world, and to better
learn from each other. The course does not "replace" anything, but it certainly contributes to a more complete higher education, and stimulates us to rethink basic assumptions concerning the nature, value, and implementation of educational systems.
In late August I
will be visiting spectacular Samarkand, Uzbekistan to give a speech for the
musicology symposium affiliated with the 12th 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am pleased to announce that we will soon have a book launch for our latest book on Routledge, Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe.
The book launch will be a public event at the libary of Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, on Tuesday April 9, 4pm-6pm.
Contributing authors representing all Nordic and Baltic countries will give presentations at the book launch. These include several of the leading scholars from the field of music education in Northern Europe. There will also be a presentation by Liora Bresler.
Click HERE to access a poster for the event.
Click HERE for more information on the book.
