phot. by Ewa Małek
Prof. Eero Tarasti, professor emeritus University of Helsinki
Visiting professor 2023/2024
Visiting Professor at the Institute of Arts Studies and at the Doctoral School of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in the academic year 2023/2024. Among others, he conducted a lecture series ‘Semiotics and music. Theory and practice', whose audience was primarily students of musicology and art history at KUL.
Prof. Eero Tarasti - Finnish musicologist, semiotician and philosopher. In 1967-75 he studied musicology at the University of Helsinki and piano at the Sibelius Academy of Music, as well as in Vienna (1972) and with J. Février at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris (1973), in addition to studies in semiotics at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris under A.J. Greimas (1974-75) and at the Universidade Federal in Rio de Janeiro (1976). In 1978 he obtained his doctorate at the University of Helsinki and joined the University of Jyväskylä, 1979-83 as Professor of Humanities and from 1983 to 1984 as Professor of Musicology, since 1984 Professor of Musicology at the University of Helsinki. Founder and president of Suomen Semiotiikan Seura / Semiotic Society of Finland (since 1979) and Musiikki Seura / Music Society at the University of Helsinki (since 1989), he was chairman of Suomen Estetiikan Seura I Finnish Society for Aesthetics (1986-87) and Suomen Musiikkitieteellinen Seura I Finnish Musicological Society (1995-98).
In addition, he is a member of numerous academies and associations worldwide, including International Association for Semiotic Studies (IASS - since 1979, 1990-2004 vice-president, 2004-2014 president), Academia Europaea (since 1987), Suomen Tiedeseura / Finnish Science Society (since 1998), Conseil Scientifique et Ecole Doctorale Arts Plastiques, Esthétique et Sciences de l'Art at the Sorbonne, Paris (since 1998), Yugoslav-European Centyr za Semioticzni Izsledwanija / South-Eastern European Semiotic Center (since 2000), Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Bologna.
Author and editor of numerous books on semiotics, published as part of the international Musical Signification project. He sits on the editorial committees of journals in the field of semiotics, including the South American ‘DeSignis’, the Spanish ‘Signa’, the Estonian ‘Seemiootikee’, the Lithuanian ‘Lithuanian musicology’, and participates in the development of editions of the complete works of J. Sibelius; he has contributed to the organisation of approximately 80 international seminars, symposia and conferences. He has received many awards and honours in Finland for his work, including the Snellman Palkinto / J.V. Snellman Prize awarded by the University of Helsinki (1997), Helsingin Tiedepalkinto / The Science Prize m. Helsinki (1998), Medal First Class Valkoisen Ruusun Ritarikunta / Order of the White Rose (1999) and abroad, including Ordem de Rio Branco in Brazil (2000), Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques in France (2004).
Tarasti is currently the most prominent representative of musical semiotics.
[source: https://polskabibliotekamuzyczna.pl/encyklopedia/tarasti-eero/]
Selected monographies:
Ikonit ja kaanonit. Kirjoituksia kulttuuriperinnöistä [eng. Icons and canons. Writings on cultural heritage], Ntamo Helsinki 2024;
Signs of Music. A Guide to Musical Semiotics, De Gruyter Mouton 2002;
Existential Semiotics, Indiana University Press 2001;
A Theory of Musical Semiotics, Indiana University Press 1994;
Myth and Music
