Dr. Thomas R. Hilder
Thomas R. Hilder (he/they) is a writer, teacher, researcher, musician, activist, and professor of ethnomusicology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His experiments in scholarship, pedagogy, and community engagement explore musical performance, community, activism, well-being, and voice, shaped by feminist, queer, and postcolonial perspectives. He is author of “Sami Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe” (2015) and co-editor of “Music, Indigeneity, Digital Media” (2017). He co-founded the international LGBTQ+ Music Study Group. In 2023 he was awarded the NTNU staff prize for equality and diversity. He has also helped build Trondheim’s queer choir, Kor Hen. During the academic year 2024-25 he is Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Humboldt University, Berlin.
Project
My project is an ethnographic study of queer choirs in three European cities: London, Rome, and Warsaw. Drawing on models in post-Stonewall USA, queer choirs have appeared since 1982 in urban centres throughout Europe, employing a range of repertoire, adopting innovative performance practices, and enacting powerful public interventions. These choirs give voice to LGBTQ+ identities, create safer spaces that nurture well-being, and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. While LGBTQ+ rights may have become “a powerful symbol of Europe” (Ayoub and Paternotte 2014: 3), new nationalist formations, increased violence toward queer people, and divisions within the LGBTQ+ community over the last decade, have rendered queer people in Europe at a critical juncture just as the project of Europe itself begins to crumble. As an ethnomusicological researcher of, and an activist within, a European queer choral music scene, I foreground the voices of queer singers, directors, and activists drawing on the notion of “hooked” by Rita Felski (2020). Based on participant-observation, qualitative interviews, participatory action research, and autoethnography, I ask: How does queer communal singing transform notions of national belonging? In what ways do queer choirs offer new models of care and kinship? How does queer choral activity shape the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights on a continent in crisis? In particular, my project weaves together theoretical traditions of voice studies, community music therapy, and queer international relations, to make timely contributions to the fields of ethnomusicology, queer theory, and European studies. The resulting monograph will weave together a polyphony of voices shaping in creative ways the musical, social, and political landscape of 21st century Europe.