Kaj Ahlsved

I am a music researcher, ethnomusicologist and music educator. Since January 2025 I work as a senior researcher at the University of Eastern Finland in the “SOMECO – Sonic Mediations and Ecocritical Listening” project, funded by the Research Council of Finland. My earlier research, especially my doctoral research (Åbo Akademi university 2017), has focused on the ubiquitous music of everyday life, explicitly on practices related to the use of recorded music during team sporting events in Finland. I am a founding member of the Research Association Suoni and 2021–2024 I was a part of the association’s research project “Music Researchers in Society: Advancing Social Justice through Activist Music Research”. In the project I focused on musical practices of the sports movement (c.1875–1939).

In the spring of 2021, I received the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy’s Bernadotte Scholarship and served as a visiting researcher at Umeå University (ethnology) 2021-2023. In 2024 I was appointed as corresponding member of the Academy. Earlier in my career I have had various roles as a teacher and an administrator in both basic arts and vocational education in Finland. I also work as a freelance music critic for the Swedish language press in Finland.