Ways of knowing – SKH meets KMH

The seminar is part of the seminar series “Ways of knowing Spring 2025” where we every Wednesday this Spring explore how Ways of Knowing manifest themselves in the field of artistic research right now. Read more about the seminar series and find upcoming seminars.

At this second inter-institutional research seminar during spring 2025, the focus will be on artistic research in music. Two guests from KMH, Mattias Sköld and Henrik Frisk, will share experiences, views, artistic works, and research in the field, from their own personal works as well as from their work as professors and researchers at KMH. There will be a particular focus on research in musical composition and electronic music; both Mattias and Henrik are composers with strong interest and practices in the field of electronic music. Mattias Sköld did his PhD as a collaboration between KMH and KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology. His dissertation deals with the visual representation of sound and music as a tool for composition and analysis. Two recent research projects by Henrik Frisk are “Historically informed design of sound synthesis," a project that deals with the electronic music heritage, and “Musical Transformations," a project on different musical traditions, transmission, and creative collaborations. The latter project was conducted together with postdoc researcher Nguyễn Thanh Thủy.

SKH profile professor Kent Olofsson will host the seminar, and he will also share his experience in artistic research projects in music where interdisciplinary approaches have been key. He did his PhD at KMH, and his thesis, “Composing the Performance”, was an interdisciplinary research project between musical composition and theatre.

Stina Ancker, newly appointed Professor of Music Dramatic Performance at SKH Opera, will also join the seminar.

Mattias Sköld is a composer who studied composition with, among others, Sven-David Sandström and Bill Brunson. He writes music ranging from orchestral to solo pieces, both acoustic and electronic. At KMH, Mattias teaches electroacoustic composition, sonology, aural skills, and music programming. In addition to score-based composition, Mattias has extensive experience in live electronics. He has also written extensively for choir, including four oratorios, and his music has been performed by choirs around the world. In 2023, Mattias earned his PhD with the dissertation “Sound Notation – The Visual Representation of Sound for Composition and Analysis”. Throughout his dissertation work, Mattias' research was closely integrated with his teaching in sonology, drawing on Pierre Schaeffer's sound classification and Lasse Thoresen's analytical methods. He continues his research with a focus on notation and electronic music and has developed an increasing interest in action notation and the combination of descriptive and prescriptive symbolic languages. In addition to his research at KMH, Mattias is involved in the sound and music computing research group at KTH and is part of the production team for the research collaboration NAVET, which is led by KTH in cooperation with KMH, SKH, Konstfack, KKH, the National Museum of Science and Technology, and the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts.

Link to Mattias Sköld’s thesis

Henrik Frisk is a professor of music with a focus on digital sound art at the department of composition, conducting and music theory at KMH and active nationally and internationally as a saxophonist, composer, researcher, as well as a teacher and lecturer. Henrik mainly works with, and mainly teaches, electroacoustic composition but also improvisation and sound installation. Since 2008, when Henrik received his doctorate, he has been conducting research in music with a focus on issues related to ethical perspectives in artistic practice and artistic work as a method for tackling difficult problems.
As a musician and composer, Henrik is active in Europe, North and Latin America and Asia and has recorded records for several international record labels. For many years he has collaborated with Vietnamese musicians and toured with the group The Six Tones, where contemporary musical practices from a post-colonial perspective are explored.
At KMH, he supervises doctoral students and represents a research group in artistic research in music in collaboration with KTH. He also leads a collaboration with the music academy in Piteå at Luleå University of Technology called Interface Research Lab, the largest cluster for artistic research in Sweden. Frisk is since 2024 the prorector of KMH.

Link to research projects by Henrik Frisk
•    Historically informed design
•    Musical Transformations

Kent Olofsson is Professor of Performing Arts for the profile area Concept and Composition at SKH. He is a composer and an artist in the field of performing arts with an extensive artistic output that spans a broad range of genres, ensemble types, art forms and contexts, including music for orchestra, chamber music, electronic music, theatre, dance performances, opera, radiophonic art, film, and rock music. He received his PhD in artistic research at KMH in 2018 with “Composing The Performance”, a thesis that investigated the relation between text, acting and musical composition, collaborative methods in music theatre, and musical composition as a dramaturgical strategy.

Link to Kent Olofsson’s thesis: www.composingtheperformance.com