About the Norwegian Academy of Music

The Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH) is a leading artistic and academic university with Norway's largest educational environment in music. NMH offers higher education in music and trains music therapists, instrumentalists, singers, church musicians, music educators, conductors, composers, music technologists, and piano tuners.

The education should provide a solid foundation for a professional music career and enable the students to make relevant choices later in life. In this way, we will contribute to Norway also having a strong and viable music life in the future, where everyone is welcome and can participate. We have a Norwegian and European musical heritage that we are proud of and which helps to identify us. We must preserve the traditions, but at the same time, we must create new musical communities in a rapidly changing society. We are managers and not museum keepers. If the heritage is to be viable and relevant in the future, we must be open to new expressions and forms of music.

We create and practice art because art is essential in itself. We facilitate and stimulate a musical society by contributing to various arenas by building NMH on research and development work at a high international level. This is how we make it possible for our students to gain a broad competence with executive, creative, pedagogical, and therapeutic skills.

Located in the bustling borough of Majorstua in Oslo, the Norwegian Academy of Music occupies two modern purpose-built houses with three concert halls, state-of-the-art recording studios, Norway’s largest academic music library, and a sizable collection of historical musical instruments. Our well-equipped teaching and practice studios, rehearsal and lecture rooms, and research laboratories provide optimal arenas for creative and musical development for students and faculty. With more than 400 concerts each year, both in-house and at other city venues, the Academy is one of Scandinavia's largest concert organisers.

If you’re dreaming of a life-long music career, the Academy can provide you with the skills you’ll need in an ever-changing profession. We offer various opportunities to develop your talent and achieve your ambitions, whether in music performance, composition, conducting, research, pedagogy, music therapy, church music or piano tuning. Our Bachelor, Master's, and PhD degree programmes encompass a range of specialisations within performance and theoretical disciplines. We also offer a large number of continuing education opportunities, whether you’re seeking career advancement or the fulfilment of a desire to deepen your knowledge and evolve your skills.

Over the years, thousands of successful music workers have completed their pre-professional training here. Through our programmes, we aim to nourish talent and to inspire and enrich musical culture in our communities and beyond.

The Academy employs leading musicians, pedagogues and researchers to guide our students through their studies. Many of our illustrious professors combine teaching with highly successful performance careers. We believe that by connecting our students with renowned music milieus through their instructors, we are bridging the gaps between training and professionalism and nurturing artistic and generational exchange. Quality and diversity are always top priorities. We make sure that our faculty represent a broad range of disciplines, genres, pedagogical and artistic approaches that our students may draw knowledge from and enjoy. Our four research centres produce new knowledge, collaborate with international networks, and ensure that our departments and faculty keep up-to-date with innovation and developments within their fields.

NMH is the Environmental Lighthouse and works in several ways to reduce the school's climate footprint. We aim to reduce the number of flights by 30% by the end of 2023 and 40% by the end of 2025 compared to 2019. At the same time, we encourage climate-friendly travel. NMH is establishing a green procurement policy and always choosing an environmentally-labeled alternative whenever possible. We also want to reduce the amount of residual waste by 30% and make it easier for more people to cycle, walk or use public transport to and from NMH.

As you walk through the main entrance of the Academy, the first you'll see is the entrance to the Lindeman Hall – our flagship 365-seat concert venue – named after the Lindeman family. In 1883, this family founded a school for organists, which would soon expand to become the Oslo Conservatoire (Musikkonservatoriet i Oslo). In 1973, the Conservatoire laid the foundation for the newly established Norwegian Academy of Music.

The legacy of the Lindeman family is preserved within our modern academy. However, we have greatly expanded in the last several decades to provide classical music education and a broad range of music education opportunities for talented musicians, composers, conductors, music therapists, and pedagogues. Today, the Norwegian Academy of Music is a specialised university institution of international renown, with more than 750 students specialising in various musical disciplines.