Stian Vestby

Short description

Stian Vestby is a music and cultural researcher at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. He has a doctorate in music from Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (2017) and a master's degree in cultural studies from Telemark University College (2009). Vestby has published in Norwegian and international peer-reviewed journals and anthologies, and he has presented research results at conferences in Europe and the USA within popular music studies, festival studies, music education, cultural sociology and cultural policy research.

Vestby is currently working on the research project Challenging country music's masculine domination: Feminine identities and creative signification in contemporary Nordicana. As a research fellow, he was a member of the research project Musical gentrification and socio-cultural diversities (supported by the Research Council of Norway).

Vestby supervises students and teaches cultural theory and aesthetics as well as music performance. He is the Head of Music Studies at Campus Hamar.

Vestby sings, plays the guitar and write songs for the band De Skyldige (the Guilty Ones).

Selected publications

2023: Vestby, S. & Solli, K. Fra cowboy til nordicana: 70 år med countrymusikk i Norge [From cowboy to nordicana: 70 years of country music in Norway]. Studia Musicologica Norvegica 49(1): 116-131. https://doi.org/10.18261/smn.49.1.9

2023: McClellan, E. R., Vestby, S., Lang, J. & Ehrlich, A. Sociological aspects of music education in higher education in Brazil, Canada, Israel, Norway, and the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Visions of Research in Music Education 42: 39-58. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/vrme/vol42/iss1/4/

2023: Vestby, S., Rindal, H., Gresseth, P. T., Bekken, E., Myhrer, R. & Larsen, T. Kull og gnister [Coal and sparks] (Music – recorded product). De Skyldige [The Guilty Ones]/FAJo Music. https://open.spotify.com/album/1dhbcpPDNlh1fTHDHr01wL?si=5o41sXqZQ7WP4cLkRNxfnw

2021: Vestby, S. Musical gentrification and the (un)democratisation of culture: Symbolic violence in country music discourse. In Dyndahl, P., Karlsen, S. & Wright, R. (Eds.). Musical gentrification: Popular music, distinction and social mobility (pp. 50-65). Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429325076-4

2021: Karlsen, S., Hara, M., Vestby, S., Dyndahl, P., Nielsen, S. G. & Skårberg, O. Exploring the phenomenon of musical gentrification: Methods and methodologies. In Dyndahl, P., Karlsen, S. & Wright, R. (Eds.). Musical gentrification: Popular music, distinction and social mobility (pp. 34-49). Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429325076-3

2019: Vestby, S. Keeping it country while dancing with the elite. IASPM@Journal 9(1): 39-55. https://doi.org/10.5429/2079-3871(2019)v9i1.5en

2017: Vestby, S. Folkelige og distingverte fellesskap: Gentrifisering av countrykultur i Norge – en festivalstudie [Popular and distinguished communities: Gentrification of country music culture in Norway – a festival study]. Ph.D. thesis, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Elverum. http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2437613

2015: Dyndahl, P., Hara, M., Karlsen, S., Nielsen, S. G., Skårberg, O. & Vestby, S. Om tilværelsens letthet og tyngde: Dansebandkultur som høgskolestudium [On the lightness and heaviness of being: Dance band culture as an academic study]. In Dobson, S., Kulbrandstad, L. A., Sand, S. & Skrefsrud, T.-A. (Eds.). Dobbeltkvalifisering: Perspektiver på kultur, utdanning og identitet (pp. 131-150). Bergen: Fagbokforlaget.

2009: Vestby, S. Signs and sounds: Identity projects and postmodern bricolage in a Chinese punk rock community. Master thesis, Telemark University College, Bø.

See all publications and projects in Cristin