Maria Medby Tollefsen ARCTIC UNIVERSITY OF NORWAY – TROMSØ
Maria Medby Tollefsen is a Norwegian aural training teacher and conductor. She works at the University of Tromsø, Academy of Music, teaching aural training for the bachelor students in Music performance and aural training pedagogy and musicianship for the master students in Aural training pedagogy. She is also head of the Bachelor studies at the academy. Maria teaches at the master program in aural training pedagogy at the Conservatorio Arrigo Boito in Parma, Italy, and is involved in the process of developing a joint European master’s degree in aural training pedagogy.
Maria’s research is focused on the development of digital tools for aural training teaching, assessments in higher music education and student-centered learning. She’s the editor of her institutions research magazine Podium, which is an annual publication.
Besides her institutional work, Maria is regularly conducting orchestra- and opera productions.
Niels Bastrup
THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC – AARHUS
Niels Bastrup is a Danish aural training, music theory, and music history teacher.
Niels has been working at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus for 12 years and has also been teaching at Aarhus Music School and Vestervig School of Church Music.
Since 2022 he has been working with the music learning software company EarMaster as an educational adviser within the field of music pedagogy and digital learning. His contributions to the EarMaster software aim at helping teachers maximize the learning outcomes of their students by creating an inspiring and motivating digital learning environment for aural training and music theory classes. He is also developing new pedagogical content (courses, tests, etc.) for EarMaster.
Niels has worked as a choir director for many years and has conducted many classical works such as masses and cantatas as well as several large scale concerts with new, popular contemporary repertoire.
Gro Shetelig
NORWEGIAN ACADEMY OF MUSIC – OSLO
Gro Shetelig, pianist, is Professor in Aural training, up to 2017 at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo (now professor emerita), and at the Arctic University in Tromsø, teaching Aural Skills, Rhythmic Training and Aural Methodology.
Being a pianist, she received her music education in Oslo (Piano pedagogy) and at Oberlin College, Ohio (Piano performance), and holds a Diploma degree in Music Theory, specializing in aural training.
She has published four textbooks in aural skills, and is co-author in the Scandinavian co-project, “Listen to Scandinavia” based on works by 20th century Nordic composers, with two CDs (abridged version in English).
She has had several engagements in radio and TV and as lecturer, giving presentations, seminars and workshops for music teachers, choirs and conductors in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, France, Latvia, Netherland, Singapore, USA, Italy, Georgia, and South Africa.
Since 2006 she was part of the research group project "Concrescence", developing methods in teaching Micro-tonality for Singers. (key words: micro-tonality, just intonation, harmonics, tonalities in Scandinavian folk music, etc.); from 2011 - 2012: "In-between-the-Beats" (with post.doc. Magnus Anderson + others) (key words: rhythmic perception and embodiment, energy, direction, flow, intention; sub-current, rhythmic hierarchy).
Erik Albjerg
ROYAL CONSERVATOIRE –
HAAG
Erik Albjerg, is a jazz music theory teacher, arranger and double bassist. He initially studied jazz trumpet at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague with Ack van Rooyen. Early on in his degree he decided to change to music theory and graduated from the conservatoire with a BM (jazz music theory) in 2000. His teachers being Boudewijn Leeuwenberg (theory) and Frans Elsen. He then studied jazz doublebass with Hein van de Geyn and Frans-Jan van der Hoeven, graduated in 2005.
Since 1998 he has been teaching a diverse range of jazz music theory subjects for several departments at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.
In 2000 Erik published an article on Gil Evans’s legendary arrangement of “Moon Dreams” in the Dutch Journal of Music Theory (volume 5, issue 1). He presented at the annual Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory Congress, in 2012 he gave a presentation on the teaching of jazz harmony, in 2018 a presentation on an integrative approach of teaching jazz theory, and in 2023 he gave a workshop on including embodiment through tap dancing and piano playing in the solfège lesson.
Over the years Erik has been searching for integration of theory and practice by combining singing, keyboard harmony, improvisation and theory. Since 2009 he has found great inspiration in the Kodály-concept of teaching. This led to his masters thesis entitled “How To Apply Kodály Principles And Methods To Jazz Solfeggio And Theory Teaching In Higher Professional Music Education” (Albjerg, 2015) and has since on request given lectures at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary.
In 2022 and 2023 workshops were given at the international workshop and forum “Sentiamoci a Parma”, Italy. With topics as “Jazz Improvisation for Classical Students”, “Preparation For Jazz Ensemble Playing”, “Jazz Improvisation: Balancing Cognition and Intuition in the Learning Process”.
This Kodály-inspired way of teaching is an ongoing work in progress especially for the jazz students of the Young Talent Department who range in age from 12 to 18, as well as for the students of the Jazz Department.
Besides teaching Erik performs regularly in several jazz groups, conducts big bands and coaches jazz combos. He has played with musicians such as Axel Hagen, Toon Roos, Juraj Stanik, Rob Agerbeek (cd november 2021 “Lock, Stock and Barrel”), Erik Doelman, Thijs van Otterloo, Rene ten Cate, Simon Rigter, Niels Tausk, Marco Kegel, Marlene Verplanck (USA) and Andrea van Otterloo.
Agenda
Friday, January 26
9.30 - 10.00 Arrival, registration and coffee
10.00 - 10.10 Gro Shetelig
Icebreaking
10.15 - 11.45 Maria Medby Tollefsen
Melody and inner hearing through the relative number system
11.45 - 12.00 Break
12.00 - 13.30 Gro Shetelig
Building bridges – From rhythmic subcurrent to rhythmic notation +
Developing rhythmic (reading) skills with Rhythm Cards
13.30 - 14.30 Lunch break
14.30 - 16.00 Erik Albjerg
Jazz Improvisation: Balancing Cognition and Intuition in the Learning Process
16.00 - 16.15 Break
16.15 - 18.00 Niels Bastrup
Developing aural skills and motivating students through self-assessed learning with EarMaster
19.00 - 21.00 Dinner
Saturday, January 27
10.00 - 11.00 Niels Bastrup
Training and expanding the short-term musical memory with EarMaster Cloud
11.00 - 11.15 Break
11.15 - 12.15 Gro Shetelig
Harmonic awareness through singing
12.15 - 12.45 Coffee break with snacks
12.45 -13.45 Maria Medby Tollefsen
Strategies for meter and rhythm learning
13.45-14.00 Break
14.00-15.00 Erik Albjerg
Jazz Improvisation With Classical Students
15.00 - 15.15 Break
15.15 - 16.00 Summaries – discussion panel
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