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Thomas Markusson

Professor

Music
Telephone
+46 31-786 41 18
+46 766-18 41 18
Mail
thomas.markusson@hsm.gu.se
Visiting address
Eklandagatan 86
41259 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 210
Göteborg

About Thomas Markusson

Thomas Markusson is a composer and double bass player working within the field of improvised music. He is Professor of Musical Performance, specializing in improvisation and double bass, at the Academy of Music and Drama.

At the Academy of Music and Drama, Thomas teaches improvisation, supervises and works with artistic research/developement, and teaches at the Bachelor’s Programme in Improvisation as well as the master’s programmes NoCoM and Improvisation and World Music. His work moves between artistic practice, pedagogy and research, with improvisation as a central method for musical exploration.

In recent years, Thomas’s artistic work has increasingly focused on the meeting between acoustic and electronic instruments. He approaches technology as an expressive tool that can deepen, nuance and challenge the human musical gesture. In his work, he explores how electronic processing can create new layers of time, sound, texture and musical dramaturgy.

One of his main artistic projects is a collaboration with Arve Henriksen, Helge Andreas Norbakken and Åke Linton. Together, they have released five albums and performed in both Nordic and international contexts. The group works at the intersection of improvisation, composition, sound design and poetry, where the relationship between the planned and the spontaneously created remains open.

Thomas is particularly interested in how sound can carry narratives — not through external references, but as an internal musical dramaturgy that guides both musicians and listeners through a process. This also forms the basis of his artistic research interest in how the immediate narrative of improvisation can be preserved, expanded and transformed through post-composition and electronic processing.

Over the years, Thomas has held several leadership and management roles, and he currently serves on the board of the Artistic Faculty.