Karl-Erik Norrman

Karl-Erik Norrman is founder (2002) and Secretary General of the European Cultural Parliament (ECP), the only Pan-European forum for cultural personalities of all sectors of Arts. The ECP has 160 members from 43 European countries. The ECP initiates projects and workshops, meets in plenary session in different European cities each year and discusses broad European themes, such as Democracy, Intercultural dialogue, European Cohesion, Media quality, etc.

As a Swedish diplomat for 30 years he served i. a. in Moscow, Peking, Geneva and Rome, dealing mainly with foreign policy, trade negotiations, cultural affairs, development cooperation and the United Nations. As Ambassador since 1989 he was posted in Spain and Swedish Commissioner General at EXPO 92 in Seville and in the 1990ies head of the Cultural Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. From 1995 he was Executive Member of the Commission for Sweden Promotion Abroad at the MFA. Norrman has also been an opera soloist (tenor) and is the author of more than 30 books, including books about about Democracy (“The Crisis of Democracy”, in Swedish 2008), World Population matters , Germany, China, India, UN, theatre, opera, design, food, European identities and football.

He participates in the public debate in Swedish, German, British, Scandinavian and other International media. He is member of several International Boards, e.g. Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, London, Institute of Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin, Vizar Architectural Competition, Sofia, Music Mind Trust, Sussex, Harald Edelstam Human Rights Foundation, Stockholm, Fondazione Love Difference, Biella. He is married to German opera singer Doris Soffel, has two children and lives in Stockholm and Berlin.

Related Sessions
Saturday 31 October 2009, 3.30pm Henry Moore Gallery
Sunday 1 November 2009, 10.45am Student Union

Festival Buzz
Each to his iPod or Great Music For All

View: Each to his iPod or Great Music For All

"Just when Kant's formulation that 'the public exercise of reason should be free' had begun to seem so remote and exhausted, the Battle should reinforce one's faith in the enduring worth of dissent and of the free traffic in ideas"
Swapan Chakravorty, professor of english, Jadavpur University