Elina Hytönen-Ng, is a Docent (Adjunct Professor) of Ethnomusicology at the School of History, Culture and Arts Studies, in the Philosophical Faculty in the University of Turku and has worked long at the School of Humanities in the Philosophical Faculty in the University of Eastern Finland. She has over ten years of work experience from interdisciplinary research environments and collaboration with an active network of researchers from different disciplines and universities. After completing her doctoral theses, she has been a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford and King’s College London altogether for a year and a half. There, she worked closely with the distinguished, King Edward Professor of Music, Martin Stokes. Other places she has visited during her career are London South Bank University and University of Huddersfield. She has also taught some lectures at the City University in London.

Hytönen-Ng’s research expertise and interest have focused, right from the beginning of the doctoral studies, on the experiences that the musicians and other participants have in musical contexts. She has been successful in studying sensitive experiences through ethnographic methods. Her work has attracted major international academic publishing houses (Hytönen-Ng 2013, 2017b) and been published in the central journals in the field (Hytönen-Ng 2017a, 2016). Hytönen-Ng has over ten years of work experience from interdisciplinary research environments and collaboration with an active network of researchers from different disciplines and universities. After completing her doctoral theses, she visited the University of Oxford and King’s College London for a year and a half. There, she worked closely with the distinguished, King Edward Professor of Music, Martin Stokes. Her research expertise and interest have focused, right from the beginning of the doctoral studies, on the experiences that the musicians and other participants have in musical contexts. She has been successful in studying sensitive experiences through ethnographic methods. Her work has attracted the interest of major international academic publishing houses (Hytönen-Ng 2013, 2017b) and been published in the central journals in the field (Hytönen-Ng 2017a, 2016).

Hytönen-Ng’s earlier research has concentrated mainly on the professional musicians’ performance experience (e.g. Hytönen-Ng 2015, 2017b), a form of a ritual experience in itself, and the musicians’ peak experiences and altered states attained during performance (e.g. Hytönen-Ng 2013). In addition, she has conduct research into the role of anthropological literature in the practices of people interested in shamanism (Hytönen-Ng 2016b), to have kick-started her network of potential participants and researchers in shamanism, and to gather up a research team. Within this project Hytönen-Ng will deepen this knowledge further by employing a more societal perspective into the experiences and the way that we connect with our environment through sound and senses.