Henkjan Honing (1959) holds a KNAW-Hendrik Muller chair in Music Cognition and is professor of Cognitive and Computational Musicology at both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He conducts his research under the auspices of the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), and the University of Amsterdam’s Brain and Cognition (ABC) center. Honing obtained his PhD at City University (London) in 1991 with research into the representation of time and temporal structure in music. During the period between 1992 and 1997, he worked as a KNAW Research Fellow (Academieonderzoeker) at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), where he conducted a study on the formalization of musical knowledge. Up until 2003, he worked as a research coordinator at the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information (NICI) where he specialized in the computational modeling of music cognition. In 2007, he was appointed Associate Professor in Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam’s Musicology capacity group. In 2010 he was awarded the KNAW-Hendrik Muller chair, designated on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2012 he was appointed strategic Professor of Cognitive and Computational Musicology at both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science of the UvA. He is known as a passionate researcher in this new interdisciplinary field that gives us fundamental insights in the cognitive mechanisms underlying musicality. Honing has authored over 150 international publications in the area of music cognition and music technology [DAI 096739525]. He recently published a book for the general public entitled Iedereen is muzikaal. Wat we weten over het luisteren naar muziek (Nieuw Amsterdam, 2009/2012), published in English as Musical Cognition: A Science of Listening (Transaction Publishers, 2011), and introduced at the 2011 edition of TEDxAmsterdam. Henkjan Honing is the Distinguished Lorentz Fellow 2013/14, a prize granted by the Lorentz Center for the Sciences and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.

Prof. dr. H. Honing University of Amsterdam (UvA) Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC) Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) P.O. Box 94242, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands Visiting address: Science Park 105, 1098 XG Amsterdam (via the main entrance of NIKHEF) | Room F2.05 Pied-à-terre: Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16, 1012 CP Amsterdam | Room K1.06 E honing (at) uva (dot) nl I www.uva.nl/profiel/h.j.honing I www.mcg.uva.nl/hh/ [this page]

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Curriculum Vitae

Academic

Henkjan Honing studied electronic music and composition at the Institute for Sonology, Utrecht University (1981-84) and at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University (1984). He received his PhD in Music (on the representation of time and temporal structure in music) from City University, London (1991). At the same time he conducted research on connectionist models and knowledge representation at the Centre for Knowledge Technology (1986-92) and the Music Department, City University, London (1988-90), funded by the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In 1992 Dr Honing became Research Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), affiliated with the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), University of Amsterdam working on the formalisation of musical knowledge (1992-97). In 1997 he founded (with Peter Desain) the Music, Mind, Machine (MMM) group, supported by an NWO-PIONIER grant, NICI / University of Nijmegen, Faculty of Humanities / University of Amsterdam, and a number of companies. This ambitious project finalized in 2003 (see final report). In 2007 he was elected Vice-President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) for a period of three years. In the same year he was promoted to the position of Associate Professor under Dean's personal appointment programme. In 2010 he was awarded the KNAW-Hendrik Muller chair, designated on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2012 he was appointed strategic Professor of Cognitive and Computational Musicology at both the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science of the UvA. Prof. dr Honing published over 160 peer-reviewed articles in international journals and books on music cognition, music representation and music technology (see publications). His research has been supported by NWO, KNAW, and several European Framework programmes. His editorial functions include being Corresponding Editor for Music Perception (MP) and Empirical Musicology Review (EMR), and Advisory Editor of the Journal for New Music Research (JNMR), as well as occasional reviews for journals like Music Theory Spectrum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychology Science, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Cognitive Science and Cognition. Honing is currently working on Rhythm and Timing in Music, a chapter in the 3rd Revised Edition of Psychology of Music.

For more information, see detailed CV.

Photo by Eduard Lampe (UvA)

 

Non-academic

Till 1992 Henkjan Honing was active as a musician (e.g., with his own quartet, winner of the 1978 NOS Jazz podium; a profession more successfully pursued by his brother Yuri Honing), and as a composer and performer of new music, composing computer music and constructing sound installations that were presented in museums and galleries in the Netherlands and abroad (see compositions). Furthermore, he was member of the gamelan ensembles Gending (new music for gamelan), Raras Budaya (Javanese shadow play performances), and Wido Sari (Javanese chamber music). Currently, he is fan --musically, and all for different reasons-- of Glenn Gould (one of a kind), Conlon Nancarrow (brilliant pianola compositions), Brad Mehldau (a jazz pianist with two hands), Meshell Ndegeocello (a true musician), Björk (great sense of melody and harmony), Elis Regina (the first Brasilian singer I heard), Yuri Honing (prove that a mix of musical cultures - e.g., Björk's Isobel for an electric band - can really work), Floris van Manen (a real listener), Mariecke van der Linden (she is opera), to mention a few. Henkjan Honing is chairman of the Opera Noir foundation for new opera productions, and board member of the Jazz in Motion Foundation.

See also personal photo album.

Affiliation

Henkjan Honing is affiliated with the Department of Musicology, the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC), and the Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam (CSCA) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) where directs the Music Cognition Group.

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