This community hosts research data, materials, presentations, publications and so forth related to electronic musical instruments designed by the Finnish pioneer of electroacoustic music Erkki Kurenniemi, and to music produced with Kurenniemi's instruments.
More information about Erkki Kurenniemi's instruments and music made with his instruments in a blog hosted by the University of Helsinki Music Research Laboratory and Electronic Music Studio.
If you are going to (re-)use, cite, post in social media or elsewhere any publications, presentations, material, data or other objects in this community, please, refer to the objects with the dois provided in their metadata. Most of the material is licensed with CC-BY. Even though totally optional, we would be very pleased to hear if this material is used somewhere and may even start to list all the projects and publications re-using material from this collection to promote your work in return. That is, if we hear from you!
Erkki Kurenniemi (1941–2017) was a pioneer of electroacoustic music in Finland whose work set the stage for the first 15 years of Finnish electronic music. During the academic year 1961–62 Kurenniemi was invited to build an electronic music studio for the Department of Musicology at the University of Helsinki by the newly appointed Professor of Musicology Erik Tawaststjerna. Amidst his studio design, between 1964 and 1975 Kurenniemi built ten innovative instruments and composed approximately thirty pieces of electroacoustic music including electronic music and sound effects for films, theater, radio plays and exhibitions. Kurenniemi collaborated with several Finnish and Swedish composers and artists, thus his visionary ideas and technical know-how had an influence also on the works of his contemporaries – and vice versa. In 1970, together with Jouko Kottila and Peter Frisk, Kurenniemi founded a company Digelius Electronics Finland with the initial target in designing and marketing of Kurenniemi's instruments. The emphasis of the projects conducted by Digelius, however, was on industrial technology leaving instrument design into a minor role. After only six years of rapidly growing operation, Digelius went bankruptcy in 1976. After his active period in music, Kurenniemi worked as a developer of industrial robotics in a multi-industrial company Rosenlew (1976–78) and at the cable machinery division of Nokia (1980–1986). In the 1980s, Kurenniemi was a founding member of the science center Heureka. During the years, he became known as a frequent commentator on scientific, technological and futurological topics on the Finnish media.
Text CC-BY Mikko Ojanen