Name: What Can We Learn from Nordic Popular Music Education? Pioneering Past, Current Practices, and Potential for Student-Centered Musical Expertise
Start: 2025-06-06T11:30:00-0500
End: 2025-06-06T12:00:00-0500

Welcome to the APME Memphis 2025 conference. Here, you’ll be able to register for the conference and update your Sched profile. The conference schedule will be available in late spring 2025. At that time, you can view the schedule and select the presentations you’d like to attend. If you have any questions, please visit our conference website or contact us at conference@popularmusiceducation.org We look forward to coming together as a community June 4–7, 2025.

Friday June 6, 2025 11:30am - 12:00pm CDT

Classroom 113 - Legacy Building

This session takes a look at popular music and jazz education in Finland. First, I briefly present the history of the Pop & Jazz Conservatory in Helsinki which was one of the first institutions for popular music learning in Northern Europe in 1972. Second, I share an insider’s view of the current education at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory since I am a full-time lecturer at, and former student of, the affiliation. Third, I look into the future as I discuss my pedagogical research (Wahlström 2022), conducted at that institution. Based on my long pedagogical experience, I developed a fresh approach to actualizing student-centered instrumental popular music education. I call this innovative pedagogical design Student-Centered Musical Expertise. Why could this be important to an American and international audience? Finland is traditionally known as a superpower of education (e.g., Economist 2019; OECD 2019). In classical music, it has a long history in organizing cutting-edge education. This shows in the country’s unique system of extra-curricular after-school music schools as well as its free vocational and university studies that are publicly funded. Importantly, this background formed a firm breeding ground for popular music education (PME) when it emerged in the early 1970s and has developed ever since. Consequently, in 50 years’ time PME has spread like wildfire across the country, which has crucially elevated the level of pop musicians. I suggest that this history, current practices, and potential of PME in Finland could inspire educators to keep building the future of PME everywhere.

Speakers

Kristian Wahlström

Electric Guitar Pedagogue, PhD, Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory

Kristian Wahlström, PhD, is an established guitarist and has played professionally for over 20 years in the Finnish music scene. As a freelancer, he has performed live with, e.g., Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks) and Perttu Kivilaakso (Apocalyptica) as well as recorded with Darude among... Read More →

Friday June 6, 2025 11:30am - 12:00pm CDT
Classroom 113 - Legacy Building 3775 Central Avenue 129 Music Building Memphis, TN, 38111

APME Memphis 2025

Kristian Wahlström

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