Sociomusicology: Arctic Music Studies

4/11/26

Arctic Music Studies

It is exciting to soon be participating in the one music-related presentation at the enormous UArctic Congress to be held in Torshavn, Faroe Islands in May 2026.

The Arctic has long been a culturally fascinating place but it has also increasingly become a region of deep geopolitical interest. Across recent years, I have been part of multiple music-related projects in this dynamic region.

Currently, I lead a work package for the Norwegian Research Council-funded Sapmi Singing Maps project in collaboration with Sami musicians (David T. Johnson, PI). I have also held a position across recent yars as Affiliated Professor with University of the Faroe Islands, where my PhD student Knut Eysturstein will soon defend his dissertation on music heritage and education in the Faroe Islands. Previously, I also performed as part of the Sympathetic Resonance Trio in the Kirkenes area (along the border between Norway and Russia) on a cultural diplomacy tour funded by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat. Recently, I am also developing a large EU grant application that aims to include both Sapmi and Greenland as research sites.

The UArctic Congress promises to attract many hundreds of participants from across a broad range of academic fields. I look forward to visiting Torshavn again, and it will be exciting to see what the participants can learn from each other there.

Image sources:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Circumpolar_coastal_human_population_distribution_ca._2009.png

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Arctic_region_showing_the_Northeast_Passage,_the_Northern_Sea_Route_and_Northwest_Passage,_and_bathymetry.png

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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).