Professor, Dr. Philos. , University of Oslo, Norway

• Born in1943, Oslo, Norway.
• MA in musicology, 1969, University of Oslo. Theme of MA-dissertation: “The development of a Russian idiom in music, discussed from the viewpoint of Michail Glinka’s songs”.
• PhD in musicology, 1981, University of Oslo. Title of PhD-dissertation: “Children’s spontaneous singing – our musical mother tongue”. This was the first PhD study in the world of song communication within the context of child cultures.
• Professor at the Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, since 1970.
• Senior professor, same place, from 1982.
• Visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine, 1986-87 and 1996-97.
• Norwegian Council of Child Research – member of the Board for eight years.
• Norwegian Council of Culture – member of the Child Culture Committee for ten years.
• Several positions at the Humanistic Faculty, University of Oslo. Former head of the Department of Musicology, same place.
• Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Arts since 1992.
• Award for outstanding research presentation, University of Oslo, 1996.
• Alice Tegnér cultural award, Sweden, 2002.

Main books:
• The Children’s Own Songbook, Oslo 1979. This songbook has become a bestseller in Norway, with over 130.000 copies sold so far. The book is based on original material from the PhD study on spontaneous musical child cultures.
• The Spontaneous Singing of Children – Our Musical Mother Tongue, Oslo 1985.
• Composer and Society – Hanns Eisler’s Music in the Light of Life and Writings, Schönberg and Brecht, Oslo 1985.
• From Acropolis to Hollywood – Film Music in the Light of Rhetoric, Oslo 1988.
• The Muse Within – Creativity and Communication, Song and Play from Childhood through Maturity, Oslo 1989. Bestseller, seven editions. Extended edidtion published in 2005. Translated into Swedish (1991, 2. and 3. edition 1994, 1998), Danish (1992, 2. edition 1998), American (1992), Dutch (1993), Norwegian sound edition for blind people (1994), Chinese (1997), Japanese (1999), Russian (2000), Serbian edition in press.
• Song of the Turtle, Oslo 1998. Translated into Swedish (1998), Danish (2003) and American (2003).
• "We are the thousands..." - Norwegian music stories, Oslo 2003.

Film documentary:
• When the Moment Sings – The Muse Within – With Africa in the Mirror, Oslo 1996. Translated into English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.