Performer & researcher based in Oslo.

Theresa Coffey is an Oslo-based performing artist and researcher. Though her main instrument is trumpet, she is also interested in electronic sound, playing a vocal synthesizer and composing electronic music. Theresa’s personal approach to performance can be called curatorial, exploring musical performance formats as an extension of artistic practice and a form of institutional critique. She understands musical performance as a multisensory experience where programming, sound, bodies, atmosphere, and co-presence are equally important components. By expanding her understanding of music to include more-than-sonic elements and engaging deeply with intertextuality, she works to reconfigure the norms and expectations of performance both for performers and audience members.

Theresa is fascinated by concepts of memory, place, subjectivity, and belonging, and she has explored these ideas both in her artistic and research practice. From 2021–2024 she led the research project Becoming with music curation at the Norwegian Academy of Music, using social science and artistic research methods to unfold emergence of artistic subjectivity in and through curatorial approaches to performance. Out of this research emerged the performance titled flyt(t)ende, weaving together the Norwegian terms flytte (moving) and flytende (fluently) to explore the tensions of rootlessness and growth that follow leaving one's home.

As an orchestral musician, Theresa has worked as both a guest principal and section substitute with various orchestras, both in the Greater Chicago area and in Oslo. For two years, she was also an Associate Member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. She has served as guest principal with the Whiting Park Festival Orchestra and Northwest Indiana Symphony, as well as a section substitute with the Southwest Michigan Symphony Orchestra, West Michigan Symphony Orchestra, and Grand Rapids Symphony. Prior to moving to Chicago, Theresa held a fellowship with the Oslo Philharmonic and performed with the Norwegian National Opera, Oslofjord Kammerfilharmoni, on the Norwegian Radio Orchestra’s chamber series, and in the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in addition.

Theresa received her Bachelor of Music degree with a minor of economics from Northwestern University with honors and Master of Music degrees from University of Maryland and the Norwegian Academy of Music. Her doctoral dissertation in performance practice is currently under committee review.

Her principal teachers include Jonas Haltia, Anthony Plog, Chris Gekker, Steven Hendrickson, Charles Geyer, and Barbara Butler.