Research groups
Research groups at the Department of Music
An overview of the excisting research groups at NTNU Department of music with focus areas.
Artistic research group at IMU
Artistic research is central at IMU in our programs for music performance and music technology. Our research fellows in artistic research are admitted to the cross-faculty programme in artistic research, PHKunst, which is a collaboration between the faculties of humanities and architecture, art and design respectively. The areas that are researched are in particular experimental music, jazz, improvisation, interpretation, composition and music technology.
Project leaders/supervisors: Michael Duch, Tone Åse, Øyvind Brandtseg and Heather Frasch
Research group Bifrost
Geir Davidsen and Ragnar Rasmussen
The Bifrost research group focuses on the exploration and use of Low Latency interaction technology for musical practice, conducting and teaching. The group contributes with the development of strategies and practices for musical collaboration and practice in the field.
Technical solutions for low latency interaction have existed for several years, but have been considered costly and complicated. It is mostly the technology communities that have worked on this and invited practitioners in to test out concepts. The costs have gradually been greatly reduced and the infrastructure for interaction is to some extent in place through the development of high-speed internet.
The group has an artistic focus where the development of music for the medium and communication is central. The interaction between technological tool development and musical exploration drives the project forward. Central is the work with ensemble management and choir direction in web-based setups, where one looks at methods for visual, non-verbal communication of musical nuances in an ensemble context, which includes sound processing/intonation and agogics/pulse/rhythmics. The group also works to develop good pedagogical solutions for online music teaching, as a supplement to "live" teaching.
Research group for instrumental, vocal and ensemble teaching (HEI)
The research group HEI focuses instrumental, vocal and ensemble teaching in municipal music and art schools, leisure music, upper secondary schools and higher music education. In this, various approaches, individual and collective processes, institutions, disciplines and subjects are crucial aspects. The work in the research group has so far included investigating and documenting a diversity of instrumental, vocal and ensemble teaching practises, through articles, artistic research and teaching books.
Members of the research group are from NTNU, Department of Music and Department of Teacher Education, Trondheim Music and Art School, Wind bands, Church musicians and Trondheim Sinfonietta. The group is led by professor emerita Wenche Waagen and associate professor Trine Knutsen, both from NTNU, Dept. Music. The research group HEI was established in relatin to university music and art school project (UniKuP, 2022–2024). Throughout the academic year 2024–2025, seminars in the research group will take place from 10-1130, the last Thursday in each month. The research group HEI is open to employees and students, and is a place to thematize and discuss research and development of instrumental, vocal and ensemble pedagogical practice. Contact Wenche Waagen if you would like to join in.
Women, Opera and the Public Stage in Eighteenth-Century Venice (WoVen)
The interdisciplinary project ‘Women, Opera and the Public Stage in Eighteenth-Century Venice’ (WoVen) brings together a research team dedicated to reimagining the links between women and European operatic culture in the eighteenth century.
WoVen explores the role of operatic women in the construction, representation, and reception of models for women in the eighteenth century. The project contextualizes the activities of female performers, composers, authors, theatre managers, patrons, and audience members within wider contemporary critical discourses about women’s education and place in society.
Project leader Melania Bucciarelli
Research Group in Musicology/Ethnomusicology
The Research Group in Musicology/Ethnomusicology includes Melania Bucciarelli, Roman Hankeln, Thomas Hilder, John Howland, Nora Bilalovic Kulset, and Tore Størvold, and Tone Åse.
The group’s research spans topics from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century with specializations in:
- Western cultivated/concert music: Italian opera and musical theatre; medieval liturgical vocal music; and German Lieder.
- Popular music, jazz studies, and music in media
- Music, culture, identity: feminist, queer, postcolonial perspectives
- Music and the social sciences (cognition, psychology, health)
- Community music, well-being, and applied methods
- Ecomusicology and music in the environmental humanities
- Artistic research