Sociomusicology: November 2025

11/8/25

Keynote and Lectures in China, Autumn 2025

I look forward to offering lectures through the Graduate School of Education at the Education University of Hong Kong, as part of the Global Competence Partnership project. This time my lectures will be on quite practical topics that nevertheless have broad relevance across academic fields, including how to publish in scholarly journals and effectively participate in academic conferences.

It is also a great pleasure to be offering a keynote speech for China’s 6th National Symposium on Oral History of Music and the Annual Meeting of the National Society for Oral History of Music in Nanning city, in the beautiful Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of China (2025).

Here is a link for more information on this event (in Chinese):

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/tcFhRtKSuwv7kJr51uOqZA

I am also an invited speaker for upcoming events in Seoul and Amsterdam. Click HERE and HERE for details.

Image source (Guangxi):

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yanshan,_Guilin,_Guangxi,_China_-_panoramio_%281%29.jpg

11/3/25

Nordic Intensive Master Course

It is exciting to now be at the Nordic Network for Music Education (NNME) intensive course, which includes participants from Master programs across all eight of the Nordic and Baltic (NB8) countries. I have been managing the NNME for several years, which receives government funding from Nordplus, and our course this year is hosted by Marja-Leena Juntunen in Finland at the beautiful Kallio-Kuninkala villa.

We eagerly look forward to seeing presentations of the Master thesis projects developed by each of the students and to sharing new ideas in the field of music education. These courses are a profoundly meaningful learning opportunity for the students, as they share with peers from across the region and develop networks that benefit them across their careers.

Click HERE to see the book produced a few years ago by this network.

Shown above is a public-domain image of Ainola, the former home of composer Jean Sibelius, which is walking distance from the course site.

Welcome to Sociomusicology

For nearly 20 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 both University of the Faroe Islands and Kyambogo University (Uganda), 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:22), with professional activities in an average of 8 countries per year across the past decade (2008-2020).