Photo: Charlotte Wiig
Astrid Kvalbein has been principal at the Norwegian Academy of Music since August 2021, with Morten Qvenild as deputy principal from 2023. She has led NMH through the last part of the coronavirus pandemic, a challenging economic restructuring, and the anniversary year 2023-2024. At the same time, she and the rest of the leadership group - also deputy principal Eyolf Dale, vice-principal for R&D Sidsel Karlsen and vice-principal for education Gunnar Flagstad - have primarily worked with the goal of gathering and listening to students and employees, with exchange and development for everyone as a goal.
Astrid has a background as a singer, freelance writer and researcher, with a degree in music pedagogy (1998) and a doctorate in historical and contemporary performance practice topics (2013) from NMH. Astrid has also been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oslo and a critic of classical and contemporary music in Aftenposten and VG. As a researcher and performer, she has worked primarily with newer Norwegian and Nordic music(history); she has, among other things, a past in the genre-crossing jazz ensemble SØYR and has premiered a number of works by Norwegian composers.
Publications
- Blåste i reisene og kuttet utgiftene med en femtedel 2024
- Still Exceptional? Women in Composition Approaching the Twenty-First Century 2021
- Wood or Blood? New scores and new sounds for voice and clarinet. 2019
- In the Absence of the Avant-Garde - Atonality, Satire and De-Romanticisation in the Musical Life of Norway 2019
- Hagearbeid - med saks og stemmegaffel, klaffer, pust og svette 2019
- Tonar, tekst og teljekantar 2019
- Musicianship as Gardening 2018
- Nordic Internationalism? Pauline Hall and "Ny Musikk" (1938-1961) 2018
- Institutionalizing contemporary music in Norway: From Pauline Hall to the Ultima festival 2018
- Forever Exceptional? On women who compose music 2018
