Researchers

Heikki Uimonen

Leader

University of Eastern Finland

PhD Heikki Uimonen is holding a post of research director at the University of Eastern Finland. He has worked as professor at the University of the Arts (2012–2017) and at the University of Eastern Finland (2020–2021, 2022–2023). Uimonen is an ethnomusicologist and a docent on acoustic communication and soundscape studies at the University of Eastern Finland and University of Tampere and recording and performing musician. He has published and co-published articles, monographs and edited anthologies on music consumption, radio music, compact cassettes, background music and transforming sensory environments. His research interests include sonic construction of place, mediated music, social use of music, transforming sensory environments and how all these intertwine. He is a board member of Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology.

Kaj Ahlsved

Senior Researcher

PhD Kaj Ahlsved is a music researcher currently affiliated with Åbo Akademi University in Turku. In 2025–2026 he is a part of the SOMECO – Sonic Mediations and Ecocritical Listening-project at University of Eastern Finland. His article dissertation (2017) focused on the ubiquitous music of everyday life, explicitly on practices related to the use of recorded music during team sporting events in Finland. Ahlsved is a founding member of research association Suoni and 2021–2024 a part of the association’s research project “Music researchers in society: Advancing social justice through activist music research” where he focuses on musical practices of the sports movement (1875–1939). Ahlsved is also a teacher in classical guitar and has had many different roles as teacher and administrator in both basic arts and vocational education in Finland. He is also a freelance music critic and columnist for Swedish language press in Finland. In the spring of 2021, he received the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy’s Bernadotte Scholarship and served as a visiting researcher at Umeå University (ethnology) 2021-2023. In 2024 he was appointed corresponding member of the Academy.

Anne Tarvainen

Senior Researcher

University of Eastern Finland

Anne Tarvainen is an ethnomusicologist (PhD) specializing in the embodied, experiential, and cultural meanings of voice. She is currently a senior research fellow at the University of Eastern Finland, working on the project “SOMECO – Sonic Mediations and Ecocritical Listening,” funded by The Research Council of Finland. Her previous research has focused on embodied listening and singers’ vocal expressions, somaesthetic experiences of d/Deaf, tone-deaf, and vocally disordered singers, as well as the transactions between voice, background music, and sonic environments in service industry workplaces. Tarvainen bridges academic insights with broader societal contexts, notably as a developer and educator of the Voicefulness® method.

Meri Kytö

University lecturer

University of Turku

Meri Kytö is university lecturer in musicology at the University of Turku and associate professor in auditory culture studies at the University of Eastern Finland. Her previous publications have tackled urban space, sonic domestication, articulations of acoustic privacy, background music, soundscapes of political protest, busking, football fans and public libraries. Her research interests are in auditory cultures, soundscape studies, science and technology studies, ethnomusicology and sensory ethnography. She is the chair of the Finnish musicological society (2024–) and the curator of Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology’s online soundscape archive. For publications please see: https://merikyto.net/publications/