Expertise summary
I hold a BA in Music and Philosophy from the University of Copenhagen and an MMus and PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. I joined Oslo in January 2015, after having been Associate Professor and Lecturer at the University of Nottingham (2009-15) and at the University of East Anglia (2005-9). I work on music and philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics in twentieth- and twenty-first century music, on film music and sound, and on the rhythm and temporality of musical experience. Other interests include popular music, music in Scandinavia, and opera and music criticism in the Weimar republic.
Publications include the co-authored book Music and Ethics (Routledge 2012, paperback 2017), the monograph Paul Bekker's Musical Ethics (Routledge, 2018), The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy co-edited with Jerrold Levinson, Tomas McAuley, and Ariana Phillips-Hutton (OUP, 2020), and Interdisciplinary Insights into Music and Philosophy (OUP, under contract).
Research collaboration
- 2017– Principal Investigator at RITMO for the Engagement and Absorption research project (funded by the Research Council of Norway).
- 2010-2017 Founding Committee Member, Events Coordinator, and Secretary, Royal Musical Association Music and Philosophy Study Group: http://www.musicandphilosophy.ac.uk
- 2013-2016 Ordinary Member of Council (by election), Royal Musical Association
- 2010-15 Co-investigator in 'Moving Experience: the production and consumption of pervasive entertainment', University of Nottingham, led by Dr Elizabeth Evans
Teaching
- University of Oslo (2015-). Courses taught include: 'Film Music'; 'Opera Through the Stage Door', contributor to various MA courses, supervisor for several MA theses and BA dissertations on a wide range of topics.
- University of Nottingham (2009-2015). Courses taught include: 'Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music', 'Music and Ethics', 'Music in Germany Between the Wars', 'Elements of Music', and the MA course 'Critical and Analytical Studies'. Supervisor for several MA theses and BA dissertations on a wide range of topics.
- University of East Anglia (2005-2009). Courses taught include: 'Music and the Moving Image', 'Opera in the Twentieth Century', 'Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music', 'Music, Theatre, Visual Arts: Some Cross Currents 1900-1930', 'Music in Germany Between the Wars', 'Sources', 'Core Critical Skills', 'Musical Analysis', 'Post-Tonal Analysis/Aesthetics', 'Aural Analysis', 'Aural Training'. Supervisor for numerous MA theses and BA dissertations on a wide range of topics.
Leadership and Management (recent)
University of Oslo:
- Head of Research Training (May 2021 – December 2023)
- Head of Research (January 2017 – December 2017)
- Head of PhD Studies (May 2015 – December 2016)
Awards
- Jerome Roche Prize (2014) for the article 'Ernst Krenek's "problem of freedom" in Jonny spielt auf' (Twentieth-Century Music, 2013).
- Lord Dearing Award for Teaching and Learning (2013) This award recognises ‘outstanding achievements of the University of Nottingham staff in enhancing the student learning experience’.
- Teaching Award, University Staff Oscar winner in the category ‘Most inspiring’ (2013) This award is entirely student-led, and granted to one individual across the whole of the University of Nottingham each year.
- Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Award (2013) I received this prestigious award for my initiative for the Music Department’s involvement in In Harmony Nottingham, bringing together students, the University, and the local community.
Public engagement (selection)
- ‘On Arne Nordheim’s film music for Stella Polaris (1993)’, invited panellist as part of the Arne Nordheim festival, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, 6 February 2020.
- ‘The usage of voice in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963)’, VOeX (Various Operatic eXperiments) festival, invited speaker and panel chair, The Norwegian National Opera, 27-29/5 2019.
- Radikal Operaregi?, discussion panel with Per Boye Hansen and others, arranged by Norsk kritikerlag, Litteraturhuset (Oslo), 29 September 2016. Summary here: http://kritikerlaget.no/saker/referat-radikal-operaregi
- 'Is changing the music in an opera allowed?', on The Magic Flute, in discussion with David Levin, Per Boye Hansen, Ståle Wikshåland, and audience members, The Norwegian National Opera, 24 October 2015
- 'Film Music and Spectator Engagement', Filmens Hus, Oslo, 'The Sound of Movies', 3-4 October 2015
- 'Film music', interview, Norwegian National Radio (NRK), on the programmes 'Norgesglasset' and 'Brunsj', 12 May and 15 May, 2015
- 'Danish music and modernism's legacies', talk for the Nielsen Study Day, IMR/Oxford Symposium, The Barbican, London, 11 October 2014
- 'Music and morality in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel', Glyndebourne Opera Festival, pre-performance talks, 25 July and 1 August 2010
Interviews (selection)
'10 Minutes with... The Jerome Roche Prize Winner', The Royal Musical Association, 2/2/2016 https://www.rma.ac.uk/2016/02/02/15-minutes-with-the-jerome-roche-prize-winner-interview-with-nanette-nielsen/
'Kan du endre musikken til Mozart'? Dagsavisen, 24/10/2015 http://www.dagsavisen.no/oslo/kan-du-endre-musikken-til-mozart-1.423569
Conference talks and colloquia (selection)
‘Improvisation as praxis: music as a form-of-life’, invited speaker and panelist at the 6th ‘(Musical) Ethics Lab’ for the FWF-funded project (Musical) Improvisation and Ethics. MaerzMusik, Berliner Festspiele, Berliner Festspiele library 23/3, 2024.
‘Enacting musical aesthetics: the embodied experience of live music’, invited research colloquium speaker, University College Dublin, School of Music, 8/2, 2024.
‘Entrainment, free will, and musicking: an enactivist perspective’, speaker and panellist with Remy Martin and Emil Bernhardt, Entrainment Workshop, RITMO, Oslo 17-18/8, 2023.
Keynote respondent (invited) for Professor Carolyn Abbate, at Vernacular Philosophy/Music, Oxford 20/4, 2022.
‘Musical Agency’, invited panellist for MusicLab 6: Human-Machine Improvisation, University of Oslo, 16/4, 2021.
‘A Musical Matter of Mind’, chair and convenor, panel at the RMA MPSG conference, 11-12/7, London 2019.
‘Absorption in Schizophrenia, Music and Mystical Experience’, co-convenor with Simon Høffding and speaker, RITMO workshop, Oslo 21-22/10, 2019.
'Carl Nielsen, the modern musical philosopher: life as an aesthetic experience’. Invited research colloquium, Cambridge, UK, 16 May 2018
'On attentive listening and moral understanding: music's challenge to philosophy', keynote for the 23rd Conference of the Nordic Network for Research in Music Education, Hurdal, Norway 14 February 2018.
Keynote at a ‘Music and Ethics’ Study Day hosted by NordArt at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo 21 September 2017.
'The work of musicology in the age of cultural reproduction', Jerome Roche keynote talk, University of Bangor, BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference, 6-8 January, 2016.