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, childhood studies, music education, cultural sociology and cultural policy research.

Vestby is currently working on two research projects: (1) Get your hands dirty: Generative artificial intelligence and critical thinking in songwriting and music education; and (2) 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, aesthetics, music performance, songwriting and entrepreneurship. He is the Head of Music Studies at Campus Hamar.

Vestby is also a singer, guitarist and songwriter for the band De Skyldige (The Guilty Ones).

Selected publications

2026: Vestby, S., Rindal, H., Bekken, E., Myhrer, R. & Norum, K. Dypere vann [Deeper water] (Music – recorded product). De Skyldige [The Guilty Ones]/Brahmacharya Music. https://open.spotify.com/album/6uxL9gCbIdgAicERHzxhwp?si=ruJ0q6PDQ3WaBQNZWRxl5w

2025: Vestby, S. Country music in Norway. In Horn, D. & Shepherd, J. (Eds.). Bloomsbury encyclopedia of popular music of the world, Volume XIII, Genres: International, Part 1 (pp. 295-304). New York: Bloomsbury Academic. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-encyclopedia-of-popular-music-of-the-world-volume-13-9781501359965/

2025: Reienes, A.-B. S., Askerøi, E. & Vestby. S. Kan kunstneren være forsker og forskeren kunstner? [Can an artist be a researcher, and a researcher an artist?] INNQuest NO 4/25: 24-27. https://hdl.handle.net/11250/5317307

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 The Norwegian Research Information Repository