Teaching, supervision and course coordination
Kari Iveland is project manager at the Department of Musicology and course coordinator for:
MUS4070
MUS3093
Her main responsibilities include teaching and supervision, organising and following up students undertaking internships and work-related projects, and developing collaboration between the Department of Musicology and organisations and professionals in the music and cultural sectors.
She also teaches voice and supervises students in songwriting, song lyrics, Popular Music Studies and artistic practice.
Academic interests and supervision
Popular Music Studies
Song lyrics and songwriting
Voice, identity and vocal recognition
Vocal performance and artistic practice
Music education and working-life relevance
Iveland’s research explores the relationship between lyrics, voice and identity in popular music. A central concern is how we learn to recognise voices and how this knowledge shapes the ways in which we listen to, read, perform and write songs and lyrics.
Her work examines voice recognition, listening competence and vocal identity, as well as the ways in which vocal sound can carry information about identity, intention and temperament. Rather than treating the voice as an expression of a fixed essence, her research approaches vocal identity as something learned, performed and recognised through embodied, cultural and musical practices.
Her PhD thesis, Lyrics, Voices and the Stories They Tell, was completed at the University of Agder in 2024. The research formed the basis of her monograph Sounding the Voice: Identity, Lyrics, and Vocal Recognition in Popular Music, published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2026.
Short bio
Kari Iveland is a researcher, artist, songwriter, session singer and voice teacher with extensive experience in the Norwegian music industry. She has released several albums and has worked as a singer, songwriter and lyricist for a wide range of Norwegian artists and productions.
She holds a PhD in Popular Musicology from the University of Agder, 2024, and a Master’s degree in performance from the Norwegian Academy of Music, 2017. She has also studied musicology at the University of Oslo and voice at the Dick Grove School of Music in Los Angeles.
Alongside her artistic practice and her work at the University of Oslo, she teaches and supervises at the University of Agder and works as a voice teacher for artists and actors.