Jonas Lundblad

Affiliated Researcher at Department of Musicology

E-mail:: jonas.lundblad@musik.uu.se
Visiting address:: Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3H
Postal address:: Box 633
751 26 UPPSALA

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Short presentation

I am an affiliate research fellow in musicology and associate professor (docent) in historical musical aesthetics in Åbo Academy University. My research concerns various kinds of interplay between music history, aesthetics and performance. I investigate French and Swedish music of the 20th century, as well as German Romantic aesthetics.

My current work for the department involves the production stages of a monograph on church music in Sweden since 1800, being part of a multi-authored history.

Biography

Jonas Lundblad studied church music and organ interpretation in Malmö, Lübeck and Piteå. He gained a Master of Fine Arts in Church Music (2005), Master of Music in Organ Performance (2006) and Master of Fine Arts in Music (“Concert Organist Diploma”, 2009). A prolific freelance career performing both as an organ soloist and with choirs and orchestras has taken him to countries across Europe. Lundblad has performed in various festivals, such as ”Messiaen 2008” in Stockholm, Bodö International Organ Festival, Connecting Arts: The European Organ Festival, Glasgow International Organ Festival. He has worked with ensembles such as the Malmö, Helsingborg and Tromsö Symphony Orchestras, The Vocal Ensemble and Radio Choir of the Danish Radio, Den Jyske Sinfonietta, as well as Malmö and Wasa Baroque Orchestras.

Lundblad’s wide-ranging repertoire encompasses music from half a millennium. With his dual competence in musicology, he enjoys delving into archives and libraries in pursuit of unknown or forgotten works. He currently undertakes a series of CD recordings that traverses unfamiliar streaks in Swedish organ history. The acclaimed first instalment, Claverists at the Organ: Keyboard culture in 18th century Sweden, with Caprice records, made him Artist of the Month in the Early Music show of the Swedish Radio.

While a student in the concert organist class of the renowned Messiaen interpreter Hans-Ola Ericsson, Jonas learned and performed the complete organ works of the composer. Since then, the music and mental landscape of Messiaen have remained one of his central influences. This repertoire was first performed at cathedrals throughout Sweden during the years 2008-2011. A second series of concerts in Stockholm was performed in 2015, as part of a three-year artistic project funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Jonas’s basic theoretical training took place within theology, with a Master of Theology awarded in 2008 from Lund University. He was made a doctoral fellow in Systematic Theology in 2009 and was thereafter involved in teaching and research at the same university. International research was conducted as a Research Fellow at the School of Critical Studies at Glasgow University and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Jonas's work within this field centres on German Idealist and Early Romantic aesthetics, especially in the work of Friedrich Schleiermacher.

Research

As a researcher at the Department of Musicology at Uppsala University, Jonas engages with historical musical aesthetics in a variety of ways, exploring connections to both philosophy and theology. A particular interest remains the legacy of German Romanticism, as well as the following German tradition of thought and music. Jonas joined the Department in 2014 on an artistic research project on Messiaen, funded by the Swedish Research Council. After a stint of service in the classical music department at the Swedish Radio, he returned in 2020. Current projects involve editorial work and research for a multi-volume history of church music in Sweden, as well as participation in a major digitalisation of musical sources from the Swedish 18th century. Jonas also specialises in the history of Swedish organ music, records such repertoire and participates in editions of previously neglected repertoires. In 2025, he hosts the international symposium "Olivier Messiaen as Organist" in co-operation with the Gothenburg International Organ Academy.

Since 2025, Jonas serves as Main Editor of Svensk Tidskrift för Musikforskning / Swedish Journal of Music Research.

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