Sharq Taronalari XII in Samarkand

In late August I will be visiting spectacular Samarkand, Uzbekistan to give a speech for the musicology symposium affiliated with the 12^th International Music Festival Sharq Taronalari.

This year’s symposium is called Prospects for the Development of Traditional Musical Art of the Eastern People, and my speech, entitled “World Music Pedagogy: Presenting Central Asian Traditions to the World”, is related to some ongoing writings for the World Music Pedagogy book series on Routledge.

The purpose of my presentation is to introduce Campbell’s WMP model and demonstrate how this innovative approach may be applied so Central Asian music traditions are effectively shared with foreign audiences, thereby broadening global appreciation and understanding of Asian musical heritage.

The Sharq Taronalari festival attracts extraordinarily skilled traditional musicians from across the world, as well as prominent music festival managers and ethnomusicologists. I am very thankful for the opportunity to be invited to this great event and look forward to meeting creative musicians from Uzbekistan and other countries. 

Link to the festival website:

https://www.sharq-taronalari.uz/

Video from a previous Sharq Taronalari festival (starting from 5:35):

https://youtu.be/KfFVPPiQj6I?t=334

Here is a link for video from the 2019 opening ceremony, with brilliant music and dance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt_rUSPJlgE&feature=youtu.be&t=4320

International Cultural Policy Courses

Across the past two weeks, PhD students from several countries joined the course I taught for Bergen Summer Research School entitled Cultural Policy: Arts Heritage and Sustainability. We included some excellent guest lecturers, such as Mary Miller (Director of Bergen National Opera) and Norwegian scholars Tore Sætersdal (anthropologist) and Ole Marius Hylland (policy analyst).

The PhD students came from Germany, Brazil/Sweden, Canada, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, and South Africa. We are now developing a book based on these two international cultural policy PhD courses held in 2018 and 2019.

Links for more information:

https://www.uib.no/en/rs/bsrs

http://sociomusicology.blogspot.com/2018/10/sustainable-development-and-cultural.html

Next week I teach a course entitled Arts Policy in the Twenty-First Century for law students in China’s leading law faculty, China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), Beijing.

In the Autumn, a new PhD course that I developed will finally be offered in Bergen at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. It is entitled Non-Western Educational Philosophy and Policy.

Link for more information:

https://www.hvl.no/en/studies-at-hvl/study-programmes/course/phd911

PLEASE NOTE: PhD students from other universities are welcome to take these exciting intensive courses in Bergen -- in English -- for ECTS European transfer credits. 

Although music, education, and global studies continue to be the major themes in my research and teaching, I am increasingly interested in devising improvements to the ways that governments support arts and cultural heritage through various kinds of institutions.

Funding Received by Nordic Network for Music Education

We are pleased to report that the Nordic Network for Music Education (NNME) has just been awarded full funding for this year from the Nordic government Nordplus program to support its intensive international Master course and exchange of Master students and lecturers across the 8 Nordic and Baltic countries. 

We are very thankful to Nordplus for a 44% increase on our budget from the previous year, which we will use wisely to ensure a strong future for music education in Northern Europe. Click HERE for more information on the NNME.

Our project for 2019 is entitled Digital Competence and Digitized Musical Heritage. This new project extends on the 20+ years of NNME history documented in our new book on Routledge, Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe.

Click HERE for more information on the book.

Intercultural Music Research

It is a pleasure to be part of two intercultural music research panels with excellent scholars at international conferences in Bergen and Malmo in early summer, 2019.

Panel Chair/Organizer, “Chinese Music” (with Directors of Confucius Institutes in Norway and Denmark). Paper presentation, “Musicians’ Reflections on the Teaching of Traditional Chinese Instruments for Prominent Conservatories in Europe and China,” Nordic Association for China Studies (NACS) international conference, University of Bergen, Norway (June 13-14, 2019, PLANNED).

Panelist, “Indigeneity in the 21st century classroom: Reconstruction and reconciliation in Scandinavia and North America” (with Eva Saether, David Johnson, Ylva Hofvander Trulsson, and Patrick Schmidt), European Association for Music in Schools (EAS) annual international conference, Malmo Academy of Music, Lund University, Sweden (May 16-18, 2019, PLANNED).

Displayed is a photo I took of a lesson on the Chinese guqin late last year.

Book Launch: Music Education in Northern Europe

I am pleased to announce that we will soon have a book launch for our latest book on Routledge, Advancing Music Education in Northern Europe.

The book launch will be a public event at the libary of Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, on Tuesday April 9, 4pm-6pm.

Contributing authors representing all Nordic and Baltic countries will give presentations at the book launch. These include several of the leading scholars from the field of music education in Northern Europe. There will also be a presentation by Liora Bresler.

Click HERE to access a poster for the event.
Click HERE for more information on the book.

World Music Pedagogy

I am happy to announce that along with William Coppola (University of North Texas) I am now co-authoring volume 7 of the World Music Pedagogy series on Routledge press. 

Our book, which is scheduled for publication in late 2019, is entitled World Music Pedagogy: Music in Higher Education.

It is designed as a unique resource for university and conservatory teachers of world music courses. 

The image shown here offers general information about the series and here is a link for further details: https://www.routledge.com/music/series/WMP

Here is a link to purchasing information for my previous books: https://amazon.com/author/davidhebert

Research Evaluation in Music

It is a pleasure to report that I was recently appointed to the Editorial Boards of two notable research journals and as External Reviewer for the Doctor of Education program with East Asia’s highest ranked faculty of education.

Music Education Research, published by Routledge, has a very international scope and the highest citation impact among international journals in the field of music education. It now has a 20-year history.

Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education is the most widely-cited open-access online journal in the field of music education. It has a 17-year history.

I continue serving on the Editorial Boards of several other journals as well, including the very oldest journal in our field, Arts Education Policy Review, published by Routledge, which was founded in 1899 under a different name.

The Education University of Hong Kong has a strong reputation for its successful programs, and I have recently been appointed External Evaluator for its Doctor of Education program in the field of Creative Arts Education.

Evaluation is always challenging, and calls for rigorous, systematic approaches and accountability. Effective evaluators must carefully determine the scope of any review, be critically reflective regarding their own biases, and develop a transparent and compelling report that enables researchers and managers to identify and build upon strengths while also recognizing possible ways of improving the quality of their work. It is inspiring to have such opportunities to play an important role in the strengthening of both educational programs and research projects.

Also, I have just returned to Norway following a residency as Hanban Visiting Scholar at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing. Shown here are images from some of my recent lectures in China, where higher education is rapidly developing with some world-class universities. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/11/27/669645323/china-expands-research-funding-luring-u-s-scientists-and-students