Eero Tarasti is a Finnish musicologist

Musicology

Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...

 and semiotician

Semiotics

Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...

, currently serving as Professor of Musicology at the University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

.

He received his Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 degree at the University of Helsinki in 1978, writing his thesis

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

 on Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius

Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...

. Then, Tarasti served at the University of Jyväskylä

University of Jyväskylä

The University of Jyväskylä is a university in Jyväskylä, Finland. It has its origins in the first Finnish-speaking teacher training college , founded in 1863. Around 14,000 students are currently enrolled in the degree programs of the university...

 between 1979–1984, where he was appointed Professor of Arts Education in 1979 and Professor of Musicology in 1983. In 1984 he took the position of Professor of Musicology in Helsinki. Tarasti has held posts as Director or President in several semiotic and musical societies and since the 1970s has written and edited numerous books encompassing a semiotic approach to music. He is the President of the International Association for Semiotic Studies

International Association for Semiotic Studies

International Association for Semiotic Studies is the major world organisation of semioticians, established in 1969....

(2004 - current).

Books

• Myth and Music. A Semiotic Approach to the Aesthetics of Myth in Music, especially that of Wagner, Sibelius and Stravinsky (1979)
• Semiotics of Music (ed.) (1987)
• Heroes of Music (1988)
• La musique comme langage I-II (ed.) (1987–88)
• Center and Periphery (ed.) (1990)
• Introduction to Semiotics (1990)
• Sémiologie et pratiques esthetiques (ed.) (1991)
• Semiotics of Finland (ed.) (1991)
• On the Borderlines of Semiosis (ed.) (1992)
• The Dream and Exaltation of Romanticism (1992)
• A Theory of Musical Semiotics (1994)
• Musical Signification (ed.) (1995)
• Examples (1996)
• Heitor Villa-Lobos (1996)
• La sémiotique musicale (1996)
• Musical Semiotics in Growth (ed.) (1996)
• Semiotics of Music (ed.)
• Musical Signification: Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics (ed.) (1998)
• Snow, Forest, Silence. The Finnish Tradition of Semiotics (ed.) (1998)
• The Correspondence (of the School Years and Years of Formation) between E.T. and Hannu Riikonen 1961-76 (1998)
• Existential Semiotics (2000)
• Le secret du professeur Amfortas (2000)
• Signs of Music (2002)
• The Realities of Music. An Encyclopedia (2003)
• Values and Signs (2004)