Nathalie Hippel-Laabs has done her doctoral degree on Johan Kvandal`s life and music at the University of Münster in Germany. She has done a biographical-analytical study with special attention to Kvandal´s free modern tonality.
The title is: Johan Kvandal – Leben und Werk. Eine biographisch-analytische Studie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung sonderpädagogischer Umsetzung. The work was published on Peter Lang – International Academic Publishers in April 2011. The book’s object is Kvandal’s life and work, and an analysis of his distinctive musical language, which he called a ‘free modern tonality’. In his works he combined the European neoclassical expression with the modal tonality of Norwegian folk music. Hippel-Laabs also examines the composer’s opera Mysteries, based on Knut Hamsun’s novel with the same name. The author graduated in 2010 from the University of Münster with this work.