Markus Mantere

Introduction

I am a music researcher and musician. My path into the field of musicology was quite typical: my music playing first became a serious hobby and then even a profession for a time (I worked as an instrument teacher and musician for a few years after studying to become a piano teacher at Tampere Conservatoire). My interest in the cultural aspects of music eventually led me to study ethnomusicology at University of Tampere, where I received my Master of Arts in 1998.

At the turn of the millennium, I was presented with the opportunity to study in the United States as a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship. I had intended to study at Brown University for one year, but found myself staying for three. Eventually, I completed my entire PhD degree there – albeit not until spring 2011. Upon my return to Finland in 2002, I managed to get an assistantship at my old Alma Mater, the Department of Music Anthropology, University of Tampere. I remained in this postdoctoral position until the end of 2006, when I finished my Finnish doctoral thesis. Immediately following my 4-year term in Tampere, I began a 5-year term as coordinator of the Doctoral Programme for Music and Performance Arts at Sibelius Academy. During those same years, what had previously been an occasional venture into editorial work became more established when, at the end of 2007, I became editor-in-chief of Musiikki, a peer-reviewed journal published by The Finnish Musicological Society.

In the beginning of 2012, I started working with the Rethinking Finnish Music History project. My research background is in cultural musicology. In particular, I have researched pianism and its history in the 1900’s by examining both the institutions of music education and the musicianship of notable pianists in depth. In 1998, I completed my master’s thesis on pianist Heinrich Neuhaus, and in my doctoral thesis eight years later I delved into the musical thinking of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould and his cultural significance in North America.

My current research project provides not only new research data, but also an opportunity for me to deepen my professional identity as a Finnish researcher of music. In examining research and music-related discourse from over 100 year ago, one can attain a broad historical perspective of where we Finnish music researchers have come from and where we are going. We learn to comprehend the present via history.

Expertise

• Musiikin historia
• Musiikin filosofia
• kulttuurinen musiikintutkimus