I act as
researcher and Adjunct Professor of performance research in the Department of
Musicology at the University of Turku. The areas of my academic expertise
include e.g. ethnographic research of musical performance, performance-oriented
music analysis, questions dealing with performer’s agency, Finnish art music,
and more recently also the study of music festivals.

The topic of my current research project is Audiovisually Mediated Performance in Music Competitions. I have previously worked as e.g.
postdoctoral researcher and project researcher funded by the Academy of Finland, researcher in several research projects, University teacher at the University of Turku, and a visiting Fulbright-scholar at Indiana University in Bloomington.

My current research project investigates audiovisually mediated performance in music competitions, for example the International Maj Lind Piano Competition. The project combines musicology with performance studies and media studies. The research is supported by Alfred Kordelin Foundation. I am also preparing a book on the studies of Finnish musicians and composers in Berlin and Vienna
(1890-1970) together with PhD Leena Heikkilä. The book is based on archive study conducted in the aforementioned cities.

In the years 2014-17
I worked as a researcher in the project Finnish Music in the 21st
Century: The Socio Cultural Significance of Art Music in the Postmodern World led by Adjunct Professor Susanna Välimäki and funded by
the Kone foundation. I studied socially aware art
music festivals in Finland from the viewpoint of performance research.

My editorial
work includes the anthologies The
Embodiment of Authority: Perspectives on Performances (eds. Taina Riikonen
and Marjaana Virtanen, Peter Lang 2014) and Musiikin
ja teatterin tekijöitä (Authors in Music and Theater, eds. Taina Riikonen, Milla Tiainen and Marjaana
Virtanen, Finnish Musicological Society 2005). I have also participated in
organizing several research events on performance studies (e.g. the international conference The Embodiment
of Authority at the Sibelius Academy 2010).

In my
postdoctoral project, From Sketches to First Performance: Composer-Performer
Interaction in the Creation Process of Musical Works (2009-13), I studied the impact of composer-performer
interaction on the formation of a commissioned composition by the Finnish
contemporary composer Jyrki Linjama. The study was part of the research project
Shared Creativity in Finnish Contemporary Music.

In my
doctoral dissertation, Musical Works in the Making: Verbal and Gestural
Negotiation in Rehearsals and Performances of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Piano
Concerti (2007), I analyzed the ways in which musicians construct musical
works and work-interpretations in live rehearsals and performances. The doctoral dissertation was preceded by my licentiate thesis (2001), the subject
of which was virtuosity in Selim Palmgren’s piano concerti.

I have taught a number of courses at the University of Turku, particularly the Department of Musicology. The topics have included for example performance research, the history of western classical music, Finnish art music and the methods of qualitative research.