Sociomusicology: December 2023

12/13/23

Intensive Course for Hong Kong Postgraduates

It has been exciting to host a group of 19 Doctoral and Master students from Hong Kong in Bergen across a 2-week period in December 2023 for a new intensive course called Education and Society in Norway Today. They visited as part of the government-sponsored Global Competence Partnership project that enables collaboration at the PhD and faculty development levels between Education University of Hong Kong and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. It is the second time in 2023 that we have had a large delegation of visitors coming from Hong Kong to Bergen through this project.

This time, the 19 students came to Bergen along with one professor (Koji Matsunobu) and one administrator (Rachel Yik Man Li). Their intensive course has featured academic lectures and discussions, museum tours, visits to an array of Norwegian schools (including comprehensive school, outdoor school, barnehage, and kulturskole, and the HVL Stord island campus), cultural heritage sites (Viking sites, stave churches, etc.), and training in VR/MR technologies and educational research methods.

Click HERE to see an article about our Outdoor School visit as part of the recent course in the local Nordhordland newspaper.

This weekend we will also be hosting the second annual GAME Symposium of the Grieg Academy Music Education research group, which this time features writing workshops for an EU Horizon Europe application as well as cooperation with notable Sami musicians. The GAME symposium in Bergen will include a number of scholars, musicians and other guests doing interesting work: Stefan Ostersjo, Johan Sara, Annukka Hirvasvuopio, Maia Mazurkiewicz, Mikolaj Rykowski, Judith Trondle, Boris Traue, Knut Eysturstein, Susanne Rosenberg, Koji Matsunobu, David Johnson, Odd Turleiv Furness, Sondre Pettersen, Steinar Satre, Sergei Tchirkov, Jostein Stalheim, Knut Jonas Sellevold, Matthieu Stepec, and several more joining online. Click HERE to learn about the 2022 GAME Symposium offered last year.

Welcome to Sociomusicology

For over 15 years (since 2007), this website has offered musings on contemporary society and its music by David G. Hebert, PhD. He is a sociomusicologist specializing in global music education who has held academic positions with universities on five continents. Dr. Hebert is now a tenured full Professor with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen. There he leads the Grieg Academy Music Education (GAME) research group and manages the multinational government-funded Nordic Network for Music Education, which organizes annual intensive Master courses and exchange of teachers and students across eight countries. He is also an Affiliated Professor with University of the Faroe Islands and an Honorary Professor in China with the Education University of Hong Kong.

Professor Hebert's research applies an international-comparative perspective to issues of pluralism, identity, and cultural relevance in music education, as well as processes by which new music traditions emerge and change - both sonically and socially - as they are adopted into institutions. Born in the 1970s, he is among the most widely-published and globally-active music scholars of his generation (h-index:20; i10-index:30), with professional activities in an average of 8 countries per year across the past decade (2008-2020).