Ulrik Volgsten
Position: Professor School/office: School of Music, Theatre and ArtEmail: dWxyaWsudm9sZ3N0ZW47b3J1LnNl
Phone: +46 19 303895
Room: M3215
About Ulrik Volgsten
The way we can win while coexisting with our opponents is to make them laugh with us
The same principle is at work when an airplane takes off for to take flight, the forces of propulsion and resistance must work together
–Wayne Shorter
Ulrik Volgsten is professor in Musicology. His research is concerned with musical communication in different media. In addition to the conceptual history of Western music (composer, work, listener) and musical aesthetics, an important area of research has been the role of vitality affects in music, which Volgsten has pioneered and developed in a number of publications since the late 1990s.
Volgsten has partaked in several research projects, both as leader and as participator, among external funders are Vetenskaprådet/The Swedish Research Council, Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond/The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, The Foundation for Biomusicology and Acoustic Ethology, Kulturrådet/Swedish Arts Council, European Support for Culture/Kaleidoscope Programme, Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation.
Beginning in 2021 Volgsten is leading, together with Benedetta Zucconi, the RJ-funded project ”The past as repeatable presence: How phonography changed music from ephemeral event to ever accessible object (a comparison between Sweden and Italy during the interwar years) ”.
Volgsten teaches at both graduate and post graduate levels. Courses include music history, philosophy and aesthetics of music, culture theory, scientific theory and method.
Forthcoming publications 2023/2024 (for full list, see link below)
- “Solitary Listening, Copyright and Reification during the Interwar Years: A Discourse Theoretic Approach”. Twentieth Century Music (in press 2024).
- "Music as Embodied and Emergent: Expanding on a Theme by Joseph Margolis". International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 54(1) 2023.
PhD Students
- Moa Fröding:
- Jennie Tiderman-Österberg: Kulning: embodiment, empowerment and in-motion - the nomadic multi-layered sonic experience in a plurality of musical realities
- Samuel Lindlöf: Cultural Diversity in Swedish Music Teacher Education
- Martin Edin: Fantasy through Combination – Nineteenth-Century Piano Improvisation in the Tradition of Carl Czerny
Research projects
Active projects
- Cultural diversity within Music teacher education in Sweden - wishful thinking or possible future?
- Music, Power and Inequity
- Preludes and Fermatas: Aspects of Nineteenth Century Piano Improvisation in the Tradition of Carl Czerny and Franz Liszt
- The past as repeatable presence: how music changed from an ephemeral event to an ever accessible object (a comparison between Sweden and Italy during the interwar years).
- The Voices of Women
Completed projects
- Everyday Devices. Mediatisation, Disciplining and Localisation of Music in Sweden 1900-1970
- Music, Identity and Multiculturalism: A study of the role of music in ethnic-based associations
- Articulations of Culturally Diverse Music Spaces in Sweden
- Interactive infant-directed singing as supportive music therapy for premature and term newborns during painful procedures
- Shaping the Meaning of Chinese Music Subcultures
- Subcultural Transfer: Indie Music in Turkey
- Older men, music and health