Sociomusicology: May 2025

5/29/25

Echoes of the Anthropocene

I look forward to giving an invited presentation for the Association for Future Music Education (AFME)’s 5th International Conference in Seoul, Korea (February 6-7, 2026).

The conference is titled “Echoes of the Anthropocene: Rethinking Music Education in an Era of Crisis.”

Seoul is a very high-tech city that I have very much enjoyed visiting over the years, and here is a link to one of my publications that contains discussions of Korea:

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-68434-5

Image source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul#/media/File:Seoul_(175734251)_(cropped).jpg

5/22/25

BSRS 2025 PhD Candidates

It is nearly time for the 2025 Bergen Summer Research School!

The PhD Candidates for the first cohort of our new course Creative Innovations in Higher Education are coming to Bergen, Norway from 17 different countries and territories: South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Philippines, China, India, Spain, Norway, Germany, Czech Republic, and the Faroe Islands.

They also represent a broad array of academic fields, from the natural sciences to social sciences, arts, and humanities.

We expect two weeks of exciting discussions that may lead to some long-term collaborations to strengthen conditions and practices at universities worldwide.

This year, BSRS is led by Birgit Kopainsky, a prolific researcher and professor of systems dynamics at University of Bergen.

Click HERE to access the original song we presented at the Opening Event of BSRS 2025.

5/7/25

APSMER conference in Perth

It is exciting to soon be giving presentations at the Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research (APSMER) conference in Perth, Australia.

APSMER is the Asia and Pacific regional conference of ISME, a global organization for which I serve on the Executive Committee and Board.

My presentations this year include (1) a co-authored paper with Koji Matsunobu that expands further on the concept of eco-musicality that we propose as a basis for philosophy of music education, and (2) a symposium presentation with Jiaxing Xie on our new book (now in the final editing stages) called A Philosophy of Music Education for the Era of AI: Dialogue between Chinese and Western Perspectives (Routledge).

We will also launch an innovative project that has been in development for several years, the Open Global Music Academy (OGMA) network, which will now be affiliated with APSMER.

I look forward to seeing colleagues and learning about the latest research in this field from across the Asia and Pacific regions.

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth#/media/File:Perth_CBD_skyline_from_State_War_Memorial_Lookout,_2023,_04_b.jpg

Keynote at Philosophy of Education conference

I look forward to giving an invited keynote speech for the Global Philosophy of Education conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in March 2026.

This event is being organized as part of the project Global Philosophy of Education (GlobalPhilEd), sponsored by Volkswagen Stiftung, and led by philosophers in Germany and the Netherlands, including Anders Schinkel, Johannes Drerup and Anouk Zuurmond.

This event promising to be very interesting, with discussion of ideas concerning educational philosophy from around the world.

Image source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam#/media/File:KeizersgrachtReguliersgrachtAmsterdam.jpg

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:21), with professional activities in an average of 8 countries per year across the past decade (2008-2020).