Name Nils-Goran Areskoug | ||
Nils-Göran Areskoug (born Sundin on 18 May 1951, Växjö, Sweden), is a Swedish physician, musicologist, composer, author and interdisciplinary scholar. With five academic degrees (MD PhD MBA MFA BA) he is Associate Professor in Transdisciplinary Research at Strömstad akademi, Sweden (2009), and Associate Professor in Musicology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (1996).
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Early life and education
Areskoug trained as a medical doctor, and was certified as cantor and organist at the Lund Cathedral in 1968. Early music teachers in Växjö included Nils Andersson, Ture Olsson, Janis Ozolins, Sylvia Mang-Borenberg, and Ladis and Boiana Müller. He studied musicology with Martin Tegen and literature with E.N. Tigerstedt at Stockholm University (from 1970), was supervised in his doctoral studies by Ingmar Bengtsson at Uppsala University (1974) and mentored by Bo Wallner at Royal University College of Music, Stockholm. As a pianist he studied at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg with Hans Leygraf in 1969 and as a conductor with Sergiu Celibidache, in Mainz, Stuttgart and Munich, from 1978 to 1995. As a composer Areskoug attended seminars with mentors such as Olivier Messiaen in Paris 1973, and György Ligeti in Stockholm, during the 1970s. He studied philosophy and aesthetics in Lund, Uppsala and, at the doctoral level, at University of Lausanne (UNIL), until 1993.
After early essays in Smålandsposten, Areskoug worked as a cultural critic for Svenska Dagbladet, 1977–1980, and as an academic teacher. Following supervision by leadership philosopher Peter Koestenbaum, Areskoug served, in 1986, as the first director of Kronoberg County Music Foundation (Stiftelsen Musik i Kronoberg), in Växjö. The popular success of his 1984 book on music led to his election as a member of the Swedish Authors' Association.
After medical studies at Lund University and Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Areskoug took up the philosophy of science at the intersection between neuroscience and psychoanalysis (and music psychotherapy) conducting dialogues with colleagues such as Dr. med. Erich Franzke in Växjö, Carl Lesche and Bertil Edgardh in Stockholm and, later, Adam Zweig, Carl Rudolf Pfaltz, and Raymond Battegay in Zürich and Basel. Areskoug's 1988 Cand. Med. Thesis at Lund University dealt with the controversy surrounding Adolf Grünbaum's critique of psychoanalysis. It was approved by Professors Lars Janzon, Bengt Scherstén and Germund Hesslow, Lund University Faculty of Medicine, at a public hearing on 1 January 1989 in the Institute of Social Medicine, Malmö University Hospital (MAS), with acclaims:
Areskoug's paper is on a very high scientific level, (Hesslow). It is rare to read something so clear in medical context (Ingvar).
Career and achievements
On 28 May 1996, the Harvard University Professor David Lewin stated on Areskoug's research in music:
I am greatly impressed. ...There is no mistaking the drive, energy, and productivity that mark a scholar of truly exceptional status. He is not afraid to tackle the really big issues of art and creativity. His scholarly equipment is certainly adequate for this task. Given that qualification, what counts is the drive and determination... And in this respect, Dr. Areskoug is formidable.
Encouraged by the philosophers Georg Henrik von Wright and Paul Feyerabend to pursue his studies of the process of interpretation in sciences and the arts which were viewed by Eduard Marbach at University of Bern as an unorthodox contribution to phenomenologic research, Areskoug spoke at University of Helsinki on invitation of Eero Tarasti. Professor Raymond Monelle, Reader at University of Edinburgh, Scotland, officially appointed evaluator of Areskoug's scholarly work on three occasions, summarized:
This was the most elaborate theory of interpretation I had ever seen.
Areskoug was invited to give a speech at University of California, San Diego (UCSD), in 1983, where Nobel Laureate Hannes Alfvén inspired him to pursue talks across disciplines. Visiting Collegium Helveticum ETH Zurich its directors, Professors Helga Nowotny and Yehuda Elkana, encouraged him to propose an arena for transdisciplinary dialogues across sciences and arts in society, a Collegium Europaeum. He held transdisciplinary dialogues on creativity and extrascientific sources of inspiration with Nobel Laureates at the Nobel Foundation centennial celebration in Stockholm, in 2001. He was an expert evaluator for the European Commission in Life sciences, in Brussels 1999; he served as expert advisor to Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (SNF), as peer review evaluator to the Arts & Sciences program of City of Vienna fund for science, research and technology, in 2008, and as an expert reviewer at Torsten och Ragnar Söderbergs stiftelser, Stockholm. He lectured on themes such as knowledge integration across disciplines, on "reflexivity" (a term adopted by George Soros) in financial interpretation at Stockholm School of Economics, on strategic policy at Centre for Advanced Study in Leadership (CASL), and engaged himself in the public debate on development of the research infrastructure of higher education in Sweden. In 1997, a top level strategic manager in a Swedish financial industry, wrote:
...he has a superior mind in integrative analysis.
During his year in Norway (1997–1998) at BI Norwegian Business School, Areskoug developed a model of contextual value conversion, an integrated view on patterns of interpretation across fields of practice, founded in cognitive neuroepistemology. Silje A. Sundt reported the focus areas of such translational research, in Norwegian Finansavisen on 16 August 1997: There, he sees interpretive processes as the common denominator behind reflected and intuitive decision, in practice and theory and, in life, art and business. A symphony orchestra is a perfect model for the interaction and leadership of organizations, and in society. In political leadership, public funding, corporate management and private financial markets investors are creating macroeconomic value to the extent that a comprehensive set of valid criteria for values (human, health, environmental, social, cultural, etc.) are attended to in interpretive paradigm and in interactive socioeconomic action, as elaborated in Financial Interpretation Research (FIR). She quoted Areskoug:
Conducting a symphony orchestra takes subtle interaction and leadership to function well, and so does managing a business.
On 29 December 2000, the Chairman of the EU European Consultative Forum on the Environment and Sustainable Development, Professor Uno Svedin, in charge of interdisciplinary activities as a Director of Research at Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (FRN), wrote:
Nils-Göran Areskoug has always shown a strong interest in these ways of approaching science and has during years been very active at the international level in trying to promote these forms of research. This includes a considerably number of presentations as invited speaker in international events on such issues latest in the beginning of the year 2000 at the large conference in Zurich. He has also written considerable on such topics. As an example, at the major INES international conference in June 2000, in Stockholm, he contributed substantially to the qualified debate on inter- and transdisciplinarity.
Concerned over a widening gap between power and competence in society, Areskoug participated in the political debate on human rights and social health in Sweden, and initiated Alliance for the Child to promote a social policy for quality in parenting. As a remedy for such imbalances, and to improve quality of life, he suggested an online competence and information resource center devoted to counteracting psychosocial maltreatment of children. He proposed to European governments a social policy initiative to coordinate a European centre for education, research, prevention, intervention and rehabilitation of victims of emotional abuse. In social sciences he adopted a medical perspective in his analyses, engaged himself in Scholars at Risk against persecution of scholars, and warned against competence deficit among authorities, perils of populism, lack of protection of intellectual freedom and the risk to open society of such ideologies as extreme feminism, in Scandinavia.
Family background
Nils-Göran Areskoug is a member of the Arreskow family and contributed to researching its history and cultural heritage.
Books
Areskoug is the author of eight full size books and numerous articles covering fields such as the history, aesthetics and analysis of classical music; as well as on the epistemology of transdisciplinary sciences and strategic cognition. A series of his works were published under the motto "In Your innermost soul all is music". Among reviews, the first volume in the series Musical Interpretation Research (MIR), was examined by Pehr Sällström in his Tecken att tänka med.
On 10 April 1995, Professor Matti Vainio concluded his evaluation for University of Jyväskylä:
His publications, which total over 3.000 pages, also demonstrate many times over his ability for independent scientific research. We must also not forget his practical involvement in the field of music as a performing artist, a conductor and a composer.
On 20 June 1996, Professors Gunnar Danbolt, Trond Berg Eriksen, Morten Nøjgaard, and Göran Hermerén, the evaluation committee for the appointment of a professorship in general aesthetics at University of Oslo, concluded:
The doctoral thesis is no doubt a great scholarly achievement.
Music
Areskoug has composed music for piano, songs and chamber ensembles, as well as several works for orchestra. As a performer he is known to appear at occasional improvised concerts and recitals on piano and at rare events as a conductor. His Symphony for Peace for symphony orchestra and choir with poems by former UN General Secretary Dag Hammarskjöld, commissioned by Stockholm Bishop Krister Stendahl, was premiered at the Stockholm Cathedral, in 1985.
His music won public recognition: In June 1985, Finnish-Swedish philosopher and psychoanalyst Carl Lesche, Stockholm, evaluated: "I was present at the final rehearsal of the premiere of his Symphony for Peace, recently performed in the Stockholm Cathedral, and can bear witness that it is a deeply felt and expressive work of substantial musical worth". The anthropologist Ann Lilljequist of Stockholm University, also at the premiere, said: "This was something unbelievably fine" The first horn player in the orchestra, at the same occasion, said: "This was the finest thing I can recall having experienced".
Among professionals, professors such as J.-Claude Piguet, David Lewin, and Radovan Lorkovic widely acclaimed his style of composition. Maestro Sergiu Celibidache concluded, in the circle of his colleagues, on Areskoug: One of the most intelligent of us all, a highly educated, sensitive and musical person – nothing prevents him from becoming a conductor; and in a handwritten note to his mentee:
A new source of light has been set free in you – may God be your guide.
Academic Degrees
Written works
Publications archived online by ETH Institutional Repository "e-collection", at: [12].
Titles under author name Areskoug or Sundin selected from Aremus, Libris, Worldcat or KIT Library (KVK):
Compositions
Archived at Svensk Musik: selected compositions dated 1967 - 1990, listed by Swedish Music Information Centre (SMIC). Caveat: List not including recent compositions, early childhood music such as piano pieces from age 13, an early full score piano concerto (from the age of 15), and an orchestral score titled Requiem in memory of a prematurely deceased elder brother, composed at the age of 17-18.