College of Liberal Arts

University of Minnesota,

Twin Cities Campus

Erkki Huovinen

Musicology

• 126 Ferguson Hall
• 612/624-4303

Erkki Huovinen holds a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in musicology as well as a Master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Turku, a multi-disciplinary scientific university in Finland. He has held professor posts at the University of Turku and at the Åbo Akademi University, the Swedish-language university of Finland. After completing his doctoral dissertation in 2002 on a topic concerning music perception and cognition, his research has spanned the philosophy of music, ancient Greek music theory, the methodology of music analysis, as well as musical improvisation. Huovinen has been published in the British Journal of Aesthetics, Music Analysis, Philosophy of Music Education Review, Music Theory Spectrum, Empirical Musicology Review, and in a number of Scandinavian journals.

Huovinen’s current research is dominated by a collaborative project with the Swedish musicologist Tobias Pontara, aiming to examine the formal argumentative strategies in contemporary analytical philosophy of music. His more empirically minded collaborative projects include one on eye-movements in music reading and one on the pedagogy and analysis of improvised music. Apart from these projects, Huovinen is doing research on the theories of the ancient Greek musical thinker Aristoxenus, as well as studying the recent rebirth of archaic Finnish aerophones in the hands of musicians and instrument builders.

Huovinen’s current artistic endeavors include Kiiski / Huovinen Blow, project that combines several art forms in producing improvised audiovisual Gesamtkunstwerke in the context of video art.