Let’s talk about gender, music and the new generations | Ingrid Dyrnes Svendsen

Ingrid Dyrnes Svendsen, a music therapist and advisor at JM Norway, works in Oslo on music and cultural projects centered on inclusion, representation, and youth empowerment. She explains that music therapy can take many forms, from clinical work in hospitals and schools to broader community-focused approaches, where music is seen as a tool for well-being and for strengthening social bonds. Her current work emphasizes how art can support both individual health and healthier, more connected communities.

A major part of her activity involves working with young people, especially girls and gender-nonconforming youth, through Loud, Norway’s largest gender-equality project for youth and part of the global Girls Rock Camp network. Loud was created to counter the persistent lack of diversity at music festivals and to offer safer, norm-breaking spaces where young people can express themselves freely. Beyond musical skills, the program gives participants a supportive community and the confidence to take up space in a world that often excludes them.

Svendsen sees the strongest impact in the transformations of individual participants who, for the first time, feel safe, empowered, and able to express who they are. She believes change requires both grassroots empowerment and shifts in power structures. Role models in music also matter, as today’s diverse pop stars help youth see themselves reflected. Her passion for gender and music stems from her own experiences of exclusion as a young musician and from a lifelong sense of justice.

Three women who inspire Ingrid Dyrnes Svendsen

• Kimberly Crenshaw
• sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Marsha P. Johnson

This is part of WP1 | T.1.2. PRODUCTION OF ORIGINAL MULTIMEDIA CONTENTS: RESEARCH, STUDIES, ARCHIVAL MATERIALS, TESTIMONIES OF WITNESSES