Partners

Michael Custodis (* 1973) studied sociology, musicology, media, and pedagogy at the University of Mainz (1993-95), comparative politics and political sociology in Bergen, Norway (1995-96) and graduated in sociology at the Freie Universität Berlin (2000). Subsequently he completed a musicological dissertation under the supervision of Albrecht Riethmüller at the FU Berlin (2003) and continued in a research project on aesthetic experience and musical judgment, led by Riethmüller, where he finished his Habilitation in 2008. In 2010 he was appointed Professor for Contemporary Music and Systematical Musicology at the University of Muenster. He was elected into the Agder Academy of Letters and Science in Kristiansand (2016) and was guest professor at the University in Bergen (2017). He was elected to the Executive Board of the German Music Council in 2025 and serves as the Managing Director of the Institute of Musicology at the University in Muenster.

Together with Arnulf Mattes he initiated the international research cooperation “Nordic Music Politics” about Norway’s music life during the years of Nazi-occupation and led the affiliated DFG-project The German Dominance of Music in Norway, 1930-45 during the years 2017-2021.

In 2022 he initiated an international interdisciplinary project about the reception of Beethoven and his music in Nazi-occupied European countries. The international research team includes 35 colleagues from 20 European countries, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and the German Historical Institutes in Paris, Rome, and Warsaw. To mark the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death in March 2027, the results will be published in a two-volume edition.

Currently his bibliography includes nine book publications, eleven (co-)editions, four media productions, and more than 80 articles, mainly in the fields of music and politics, Nazi-continuities in the post-war music life of both Germanies, music of the 20^th and 21^st century, as well as the interdependencies of “classical” and “popular” music. A complete list of his publications can be found here.

He is present regularly in the international media, including radio (amongst others WDR, SWR, BR, SR, Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandradio Kultur, Radio Q Münster, Deutsche Welle, ORF, BBC), TV (Arte, WDR, ARD), newspapers (Germany, Norway), documentaries (Arte), podcasts (Germany, Canada), international and national journals, and online.