Recital: Classic Songs of Boundless Love

I have developed a recital that will be performed in China in late November, then in Norway in early December, 2024. It is in collaboration with a highly skilled Hong Kong-based pianist Dr. Philbert King-yue Li.

Below are a few details about the concept and program for Classic Songs of Boundless Love:  

It has often been said that love knows no boundaries, but today parts of the world are torn by the violence of war. This presentation uses masterful art songs to illustrate shared human values that persist despite conflict. The recent Olympic Games in Paris, France, highlight how diplomacy can triumph, and this selection of classic songs by notable twentieth century composers—in France, the US, Russia, Japan and China—demonstrates a collective sentiment shared worldwide: Whether romantic love, love for an infant, or love of nature and one’s homeland, it is this profound feeling that guides all people toward mutual appreciation and treating each other with compassion and kindness. Dr. Hebert has worked as a music professor in each of the places discussed, and through the lecture connects each song to both cultural history and his personal writings and experiences in each location. 

 

 

PROGRAM of SONGS

• Francis Poulenc (France): “Invocation aux Parques” and “Serenade” 

• Samuel Barber (USA): “Sure on this Shining Night” and “Rain Has Fallen”

• Yoshimatsu Takashi (Japan): Pleiades Dances VI, op.71

• Sergei Rachmaninov (Russia): “Child, You are Beautiful Like a Flower” (Op.8 No.2) and “In the Mysterious Silence of the Night” (Op.4 No.3). 

• Robert Schumann (Germany): Selections from “Kinderszenen”, Op. 15 

• Huang Tzu (China): “Mei Gui San Yuan” (Three Wishes from a Rose) 

• Leung Chi-hin (China): “Thoughts of Separation”

Possible encores: 

• Song of the Yue Boatman (traditional, China)

• Lu Zayi (China): “Wang Xiang Ci” (Musing on My Native Land) 

• Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein: Ol’ Man River (USA)

Biographies:

David G. Hebert, PhD is a full Professor of Music with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences and Honorary Professor with the Education University of Hong Kong. A widely published and cited researcher, he has also held positions with universities in the USA, Finland, Japan, Russia, Brazil, China, Uganda, Faroe Islands, and New Zealand, and has directed research projects on each inhabited continent. He serves on the Executive Council and Board of the International Society for Music Education.

Dr. Hebert’s writings appear in over 30 different professional journals, and he is author or editor of ten books, including such titles as Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe, Teaching World Music in Higher Education, Ethnomusicology and Cultural Diplomacy, Comparative and Decolonial Studies in Philosophy of Education, Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology, and Music Glocalization: Heritage and Innovation in a Digital Age.

 

Dr. Philbert King-yue Li is a Lecturer with the Education University of Hong Kong. A native of Hong Kong, he holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano performance from Arizona State University in the United States. He has performed at the American Liszt Society Festival and was a prize winner at the 2019 Monegrarte International Piano Competition and 2020 Putra International Piano Competition. Dr. LI has given performances in many countries, including the United States, Russia, Spain, Germany, Belgium, and China, and in early November 2024, he is touring Southeast Asia.

Below are posters from our recent 4-city tour in China: 

Empowering Voices in Aotearoa

It is a pleasure to be returning to Aotearoa New Zealand (where I worked as Head of Music for a Maori college many years ago) to give a presentation in cooperation with Sally Jane Norman, David Thorarinn Johnson, Gene Lai, and Christidis Ioannis at the 48^th ICTMD World Conference 2025. Our Empowering Voices panel presentation is related to a large project on democracy and minority music traditions for which we have sought funding from the EU.

The event where we will present our ideas is organized by the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance, or ICTMD, which is “a scholarly organization which aims to further the study, practice, documentation, preservation, and dissemination of music and dance of all countries (…) As a non-governmental organization in formal consultative relations with UNESCO and by means of its wide international representation and the activities of its Study Groups, the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance acts as a bond among peoples of different cultures and thus contributes to the peace of humankind.”

We look forward to sharing our research and learning what others are doing to support music and dance traditions worldwide. 

Historical Ethnomusicology Series on Bloomsbury

 

The Deep Soundings book series in Historical Ethnomusicology is now on Bloomsbury press, since Lexington Books has become part of the Bloomsbury catalogue.

The series already has four volumes published (displayed above) and three more are under contract:

-Vol. V (forthcoming), by Amy Frishkey, PhD: Navigating Neo-Traditionalism in Garifuna Popular Music 

-Vol. VI (forthcoming), by Matthew Machin-Autenrieth, PhD: The Spanish-Moroccan Musical Brotherhood: Colonial Legacies, Interculturalism and Cultural Memory across the Strait of Gibraltor  

-Vol. VII (forthcoming), by Jeffrey van den Scott, PhD: Sounding North: Inuit in the Canadian Musical Landscape   

Click HERE, HERE and HERE for further information about the series.

 

Historical Ethnomusicology Section

It is a pleasure to report that I have recently been elected Secretary and Incoming Chair for the Historical Ethnomusicology Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology. In close collaboration with the current Chair Otto Stuparitz (University of Amsterdam), there are several goals that I expect we can achieve for further development of the Section.   

SEM explains its sections as follows: “Sections support large areas of professional interest within the Society membership. Sections elect their own officers and in some cases collect nominal dues on a voluntary basis.”

Around 15 years ago I briefly served as Chair of the Historical Ethnomusicology SIG and later helped to develop the application along with Jon McCollum for it to become a Section. Our work in this milieu led to development of the Deep Soundings book series and other projects. 

Now I especially see potential in establishing collaborations between the Section and its equivalents in various sister organizations with shared interests in global music history (e.g. ICTMD Historical Sources SIG, ISME History Standing Committee, IMS Global History of Music Study Group, Analytical Approaches to World Music-AAWM, etc.).

It will be exciting to see what the Historical Ethnomusicology Section can accomplish over the next few years.

 

Master Graduation in Uganda

Today Rogers Mpoza completed his viva voce, a final requirement for his Master degree at Kyambogo University, in Kampala, Uganda, as part of the CABUTE project.

We are grateful to his supportive local supervisor Dr. James Isabirye, Dean Elizabeth Kyazike, and the entire CABUTE team for this important accomplishment.

It was a joy to host Rogers Mpoza in Norway, and we eagerly look forward to meeting again in Uganda in 2025.

Congratulations to Rogers Mpoza! 

Publications in Media

This week there were announcements about some of my publications in both European and Chinese social media, which was encouraging to see.

Click HERE to access a public announcement from Bergen Summer Research School that describes publications I developed with PhD students from a few different cohorts of courses across recent years. This includes two edited volumes and a journal article.

Click HERE, if you read Chinese, to see some interesting discussions surrounding a Chinese translation of the book Theory and Method in Historical Ethnomusicology.

 

Displayed above is a photo from a few days ago of my backyard at dawn. It is definitely Autumn now in Norway, time to wear warmer clothes.