Niels Chr. Hansen is Associate Professor of Music Theory, History, & Analysis. His research and teaching focus on psychological and computational approaches to music – including its theory and history – as a culturally embedded phenomenon dependent on human psychology and biology. In 2025 he launched a new masters’ elective on “Forgotten Figures in Western Music History & Analysis” with the explicit goal to diversify the music we teach, perform, and analyse in conservatory education.

He leads the Cognitive Musicology and Performance Science Lab (CoMPS), jointly located at Royal Academy of Music Aarhus/Aalborg (RAMA) and at Aarhus University (AU). His group’s ongoing research projects include:

1. CLAPS (“Collective Applause in the Symphonic Concert Hall”, 2025–29, funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark’s Sapere Aude-Research Leader program): A radically interdisciplinary research collaboration with Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, investigating applause behaviour in the orchestra’s core audience via state-of-the-art video/audio recordings over three full concert seasons.
2. PLAY (“Timbral Diversification for Personalised Learning in Aural Skills Pedagogy”, 2024–27, funded by Ministry of Culture Denmark): A collaboration with the Aarhus-based ear training mobile app EarMaster, aiming to enhance aural skills pedagogy at Danish conservatories via listening experiments, music information retrieval, and digital citizen science.

Before joining the faculty, Niels Christian graduated from RAMA with a dual bachelor degree in Music Theory and Classical Piano (2007), under the guidance of Prof. Anne Øland, and with an MMus in Music Theory (2011). He also received an MSc in Music, Mind, & Brain (distinction) (2011) from Goldsmiths College, London, and a PhD in Music and Neuroscience from AU and RAMA (2016).

He has held postdoctoral research positions in Prof. David Huron’s Cognitive and Systematic Musicology Laboratory at Ohio State University (2016–18), in Prof. Peter Keller’s group at MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour, and Development at Western Sydney University (2018–20), and as a team member on Prof. Suvi Saarikallio’s MUSICONNECT project at Centre of Excellence in Music, Mind, Body, & Brain at University of Jyväskylä (2023–25). Hansen’s research has received competitive funding from Carlsberg Foundation, Lundbeck Foundation, EliteForsk, and EU Horizon 2020 (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions). He has been a Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (2020–23) and a member of Danish Young Academy (2021–25). He currently serves as a Board Member for Danish Musicological Society and as a Vice President for European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM).

More info on Niels Chr. Hansen’s PhD project: Predictive Coding of Musical Expertise.
Read Niels Chr. Hansen’s doctoral dissertation here: Dissertation