Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH)
The Norwegian Academy of Music believes that connecting students with renowned music environments through their teachers will bridge the gap between training and professionalism as well as nurture artistic and generational exchange. Quality and diversity are top priorities for NMH.
The faculty represents a broad range of disciplines, genres, pedagogical and artistic approaches that students draw knowledge from and enjoy.
As you walk through the main entrance of the Academy, you’ll see the Lindeman Hall – NMH’s flagship 365-seat concert venue – named after the Lindeman family. In 1883, this family founded a school for organists which would later become the Oslo Conservatory of Music. In 1973, the Conservatory merged with the newly established Norwegian Academy of Music.
The legacy of the Lindeman family is preserved within the modern academy, though NMH has expanded in the last decades to provide not only a classical music education, but a broader range of music educational opportunities for talented musicians, composers, conductors, music therapists and pedagogues. Today, the Norwegian Academy of Music is a specialised university of international renown, with more than 750 students specialising in various musical disciplines. With over 400 concerts each year, both in-house and at other city venues, the Academy is one of the largest concert organisers in Scandinavia.
NMH’s jazz department encourages a broad repertoire and curiosity about new artistic expressions. The programme is largely project-based and individually tailored. The aim is to train independent musicians capable of taking responsibility for their own artistic and creative development. As well as individual coaching on the student’s principal instrument, the jazz department emphasises developing craftsmanship. Collective music-making is a key part of the principal instrument tuition. The teachers are amongst Norway’s leading performers and creative artists in the field of improvisation and jazz, and their musical styles span a wide range. The jazz department also cooperates with the other departments at the academy when they need expertise on instrumental teaching, composition, technology or folk music. The environment in the jazz department, with its facilities and ensemble opportunities, is an asset in itself. The opportunities on offer resemble those that musicians will encounter in professional life.
The Academy’s motivation for initiating The Jazz Workshop is to further develop the format of large jazz ensembles together with strong partners in Europe. The jazz scene in Norway has developed a tradition where it is common to serve more than one function in a band and the boarders between musicians, band leaders and composers/arrangers are more and more washed out. The Academy aims to offer a highly international formal training in leading large jazz ensembles and the possibility for international experiences in large ensembles for our jazz musicians and composers.
