FEATURED AUTHOR

Dag Jansson

Associate Professor
Oslo Business School, Oslo Metropolitan University

After a business career, Dag did a complete reset – pursuing musicology studies at the University of Oslo and choral conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he also earned his PhD. He began a new career as a freelance conductor and was in 2015 appointed associate professor of arts management at Oslo Business School. He continues a blended practice of choral conducting, teaching, and research.

Subjects: Music, Work & Organizational Psychology

Biography

Dag's educational path is a long and winding road. An engineering degree from NTNU and an MBA from INSEAD provided a solid basis for the business part of his career. He pursued all along also his music interests, including singing tenor in the well-renowned Grex Vocalis. In 2005, he made a clean break to fully commit to a new career in music. Undergraduate and graduate studies in musicology at the University of Oslo brought him on the fast-track to a master's degree by 2008. Embedded in these studies were also choral conducting classes at the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he in 2013 earned his PhD. The project for his thesis was a phenomenological study of the choral conductor role.

Dag spent 15 years of his career in the Capgemini Group, where he held several positions in the Nordic region as well as globally. From 2002 to 2005, he headed the global telecom and media consulting practice. Through his consulting career, he worked with major clients in the massive transition from the analogue media world to the digital connectivity of the new millennium. A hallmark of this practice was to build an unbeatable team, based on deep industry expertise combined with exquisite people skills. Following his music education, Dag has conducted several choirs, presenting innovative musical projects. From 2019, he teaches choral leadership at the Academy of Music and Drama, University of Gothenburg.

The various threads in the professional weaving led to the appointment as associate professor in arts management at Oslo Business School - Oslo Metropolitan University in 2015. His key responsibility is a curriculum serving artists and culture workers who seek to expand their managerial competence.

Dag's research interests fall within the ambiguous label 'musical leadership', encompassing the music domain as well as the muse within every type of leader. In much of the research, the musical moment is used as a horn of plenty to shed light on a number of organisational issues. Aesthetics and phenomenology is often the favoured approach to understanding what goes on in leadership processes.

Education

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Musical leadership, leadership theory, organisational aesthetics, team development, arts management, strategy, choral conducting, phenomenology.

Personal Interests

Music, languages, geography, culture.

Websites

Oslo Metropolitan University

Books

Featured Title

Articles

The gesture enigma: Reconciling the prominence and insignificance of choral conductor gestures

Published: Jan 08, 2021 by Research Studies in Music Education
Authors: Dag Jansson, Anne Haugland Balsnes, and Colin Durrant

Conductor gestures take an enigmatic role – at times conspicuous and paramount, while research has found that they are rather insignificant in determining overall conductor effectiveness. Four ‘enigma busting’ contextual imensions were found: complexity of the music, the irreplaceability of gestures in the specific situation, singers’ receptiveness to gestures, and the gestural proficiency of the conductor.

The construction of leadership practice: Making sense of leader competencies

Published: Jan 04, 2021 by Leadership
Authors: Dag Jansson, Erik Døving and Beate Elstad
Subjects: Work & Organizational Psychology

In this article, we propose that how the leader makes sense of his or her competencies is key to leadership practice. The key to this sensemaking process is how they move competency elements they master to the foreground and wanting elements to the background. The concept of ‘sensemaking affordance’ is introduced to account for how various leader competency categories are negotiated to safeguard overall efficacy.

Taming the “Alpha-Male” In the Space Between Art and Business

Published: Feb 11, 2020 by Organizational Aesthetics
Authors: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Work & Organizational Psychology

Nine managers of a professional services firm, including the chief executive, engaged in weekly group singing sessions for more than a year. The paper discusses their learnings in light of the two communities of practice they took part in—the choir practice and the managerial practice.

From Artist to Manager—Working Conditions, Career Satisfaction, and Professional Identity among Graduated Arts Management Students

Published: Jan 05, 2020 by The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society
Authors: Beate Elstad and Dag Jansson
Subjects: Work & Organizational Psychology

This paper examines the careers of artists and cultural workers who completed a one-year arts management graduate program. The results show that graduates with managerial responsibility view their working conditions significantly better than those without such responsibility. They also experience higher career satisfaction and express a stronger leader identity, and notably, they retain an artistic identity to the same degree level as non-managers.

Choral conducting competences: Perceptions and priorities

Published: Jun 29, 2019 by Research Studies in Music Education
Authors: Jansson, Dag; Elstad, Beate; Døving, Erik
Subjects: Music

This article is an exploratory study of 17 competence elements, viewed by conductors in the context of their own practice. The study is based on a survey of 294 choral conductors across Norway. The two contextual factors that explain most variation for several competence elements are the length of the conductor’s experience and the level (amateur/professional) of the conductor’s choirs.

Universality and situatedness in educating choral conductors

Published: Jun 14, 2019 by Music Education Research
Authors: Jansson, Dag; Elstad, Beate; Døving, Erik
Subjects: Music

This article reports from a survey of 685 choral conductors in Norway, Sweden, and Germany. The aim is to understand what degree various competences are situated, that is, dependent on contextual factors.

Choral Singers’ Perceptions of Musical Leadership

Published: Apr 19, 2019 by The Oxford Handbook of Singing
Authors: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Music

This article presents results from case studies of singing interventions at two different workplaces. Our phenomenological and hermeneutic approach focuses mainly on the employees' experience of singing at work. We identified four axes of impact: enjoyment, comfort zone, communality, and identity and roles. A workplace choir can challenge perceptions about how colleagues view each other and transform individual identities.

Nordic choral conductor education: Overview and research agenda

Published: Nov 11, 2018 by Nordic Research in Music Education Yearbook Vol 19
Authors: Jansson, Dag; Bygdéus, Pia; Balsnes, Anne Haugland

This paper seeks to establish a picture of university/academy-based education in choral conducting, with focus on the Scandinavian countries. Which educational programmes exist, what are their profiles in terms of the underlying thinking and ensemble needs they serve, and what is the capacity in terms of number of students? A variety of research data has been gathered, including curriculum reviews and interviews with conducting teachers and students from selected institutions.

Modelling Choral Leadership

Published: Apr 19, 2018 by Choral Singingen: Histories and Practices
Authors: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Music

The article discusses ways to model the encounter between conductor and singers. Three different perspectives are offered; the legitimacy model (why we need a conductor), the enactment model (how to do it well), and the notion of elusive perfection (how the conductor faces a continuous balancing act).

Unfreezing Identities: Exploring Choral Singing in the Workplace

Published: Apr 18, 2018 by International Journal of Community Music
Authors: Anne Balsnes and Dag Jansson

Photos

News

Conference paper: Organising the future: Exploring the phenomenology of the musical moment

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Philosophy, Psychology, Work & Organizational Psychology

Full article text available.

Conference paper: The transfer space between art and business

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Psychology, Work & Organizational Psychology

Full article text available for downloading.

Published sheet music

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Applied Arts & Music, Music

A selection of arrangements for choir a cappella.

Conductor competences: Speech at Choral conductor symposium

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Applied Arts & Music, Music, Psychology, Work & Organizational Psychology

Presentation of preliminary findings from quantitative study of choral conductor competences. Final results and publication in progress.

Vortrag Leadership - Workshop at the 5th Berlin Choral Leader Symposium

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Applied Arts & Music, Music, Psychology, Work & Organizational Psychology

Worksthop at 5. Berliner Chorleitertag, Humboldt Universität.

Anniversary Symposium: 5 years of arts management at Oslo Met

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Education

Symposium at Oslo Met celebrating the five-years anniversary of the Arts Management programme. (Link to article in Norwegian)

Leadership–Lecture at the Northern Lights Festival 2010

By: Dag Jansson
Subjects: Psychology, Work & Organizational Psychology

What characterises good leadership and bad leadership, seen from the point of view of the singer and musician? A number of features contribute to the 'leaders gestalt', including contact, devotion, sincerity, and not least, aesthetic will power. When these existential factors are in place, the ensemble is to a large extent willing to forgive the lack of some technical competences.

Videos

I know of a heavenly stronghold (Eg veit i himmerik ei borg)

Published: May 29, 2011

The award-winning music video featuring the chamber choir Vox Humana. The shooting location is outside the library of the University of Oslo.

Sanctus

Published: Jun 07, 2015

Sanctus from the oratorio 'Tree of Tenderness' by Magnar Åm. The music video is set in a metro station, whose simple character, with the appearance of human faces, explores the sacred in the simple and unconspicuous.