Sociomusicology: October 2026

10/10/26

Book Review: AI and Music Education

A quite informative review of our recent book A New Philosophy of Music Education for the Era of AI (Routledge, 2026) has now been published by Cambridge University Press in the British Journal of Music Education.

Click here to access:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265051726101107

According to its author, Associate Professor Lee Cheng, “the philosophical foundations, values and purposes of music education in an environment increasingly shaped by AI remain underexplored. A New Philosophy of Music Education for the Era of AI addresses this gap by exploring how music education can help individuals achieve self-discovery in this transformative era (...) the book offers a timely philosophical intervention at a moment when people are increasingly embracing and relying on AI without critically reflecting on its broader implications for humanity or how society may be transformed by its growing presence. This book is a call for music educators to look beyond what AI can do and reconsider what it means to be human through music education.”

Click HERE to see reviews of my previous books.

10/8/26

Inequalities in Higher Education and the Arts

Each year, more than 100 PhD students from universities around the world come to Bergen, Norway for its Bergen Summer Research School (BSRS), where during a brief residency they gain new perspectives with interdisciplinary insights.

The theme of the 2027 BSRS is Moral Economies, and I look forward to teaching its PhD course Inequalities in Higher Education and the Arts.

More information will be posted here as the BSRS application process is formally announced (typically by January), but for now, HERE is a link to a previous version of this BSRS course. We anticipate strong interest in this course and look forward to seeing who is accepted and what develops from our collaborations.

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), Visiting Professor with UCSI University (Malaysia), and Honorary Professor 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:23), with professional activities in an average of 8 countries per year across the past decade (2008-2020).