Karin Johansson

Professor of Artistic Research in Music

As a professor at the Malmö Academy of Music, Karin Johansson’s research interests focus on musical learning and creativity. Her research and developmental projects are made in the fields of improvisation, choral singing and Higher Music Education (HME).
At present she is one of the participants in the Swedish-Norwegian-German research project Discourses of Professionalisation and Academisation in Higher Music Education (DAPHME), funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The overarching aim of DAPHME concerns the impact of processes of academisation on European HME.
Together with Dr. Phil. Ursula Geisler she initiated and organised the international choral research network Choir in Focus 2009–2012 and the transdisciplinary Pufendorf project Artistic Vocal and Choral Orders (AVaCO) 2014–2015.
Following her dissertation study on professional organists’ improvisation (2008), she was part of the project (re)thinking improvisation, funded by Vetenskapsrådet 2009–2011 and continued the study of strategies and conditions for improvisation. In the recently concluded artistic research project Rituals she investigated the relationship between performance praxis in new and older music, and between composers and interpreters.
In several studies on HME and one-to-one teaching Karin Johansson have applied the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), with a particular interest in theoretical and methodological development in the area of artistic education and performance.   
She’s engaged in issues for the future and 2018–2020 she’s one of the participants in the Lund University academic think tank LU Futura.