Astrid Kvalbein (born 13 October 1971 in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

) is a Norwegian

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

, classical music critic and

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...

, and the

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

(i.e. president) of the

Norwegian Academy of Music The Norwegian Academy of Music (Norwegian: ''Norges musikkhøgskole'', NMH) is a university-level music conservatory located in Oslo, Norway, in the neighbourhood of Majorstuen, Frogner. It is the largest music academy in Norway and offers the co ...

, serving since 2021.

Career

Kvalbein was born in

and is the daughter of the theologian Hans Kvalbein. She is both a performer and an academic musicologist. She earned her doctorate in musicology at the

in 2013 with a dissertation examining the work of

Pauline Hall Pauline Hall (born Pauline Fredrika Schmidgall;Browne, Walter and Frederick Arnold Austin. Who's who on the stage: the dramatic reference book and biographical dictionary of the theatre, Volume 1' (1906), p. 120. February 26, 1860 – December ...

(1890–1969) as a classical composer, and subsequently worked as a senior researcher at the institution until her 2021 election as its rector, its highest office. She is well known as the long-time classical music critic of Norway's two largest newspapers, ''

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 million ...

'' and ''

Verdens Gang ''Verdens Gang'' ("The course of the world"), generally known under the abbreviation ''VG'', is a Norwegian tabloid newspaper. In 2016, circulation numbers stood at 93,883, having declined from a peak circulation of 390,510 in 2002. ''VG'' is n ...

''. As a performer Kvalbein has been a member of contemporary and avant-garde music groups Søyr, vonDrei (with Solveig Slettahjell and Ellen Aagaard) and asamisimasa.

Awards

*Gender Equality Award of the Norwegian Association of Composers (2018)Komponistforeningens likestillingspris til Astrid Kvalbein
''Ballade''

References

Norwegian musicologists Norwegian music critics Norwegian women critics Norwegian women non-fiction writers 20th-century Norwegian women singers 20th-century Norwegian singers 1971 births Living people 21st-century Norwegian women singers 21st-century Norwegian singers {{Norway-music-bio-stub