Wilfried Gruhn

Gruhn held visiting professorships at the Eastman School of Music, the Universiti Teknologi MARA, the International University of Andalucía in Seville and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre in Tallinn, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2019. Further teaching assignments or courses took him to the University of the Arts Bern and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

With an increasing focus on early childhood music learning, he founded the Gordon-Institut für frühkindliches Musiklernen (Gordon Institute for Early Childhood Music Learning) in Freiburg in 2003, and directed it until 2009. Here, Gordon's learning-theoretical foundations were to be placed on neurobiological research results and expanded in order to make them usable for music teacher training. A parallel strand of research was devoted to historical research on the history of music education; he founded in 2009 the Internationale Leo Kestenberg Gesellschaft, which published the complete writings of Leo Kestenberg, a music education in Prussia, in six volumes, from 2009 to 2013.

Gruhn was also president of the Research Alliance of Institutes for Music Education from 1995 to 1997. He represented Germany in the International Society for Music Education (ISME) since 1994, and was a member of its board of directors from 2000 to 2004. He was chairman of the Internationale Leo Kestenberg Gesellschaft from 2009 to 2012.

Gruhn focused in his research on musical learning. Intensive contacts with American music pedagogy since 1980 led him to study the music learning theory of Edwin Gordon. The research approaches of the cognitive sciences resulted in new empirical approaches to learning research (perception and cognition of music), which also took up the expanded possibilities of the emerging neuroscience and led to research into the neural foundations of musical learning in collaboration with medical scientists, psychologists and neurologists.

After playing as a violinist in the Mainzer Flötenquartett (Mainz Flute Quartet) and the Heidelberger Kammerorchester, as well as music pedagogical engagement in curriculum commissions and in teacher training, he took over a teaching position for music pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik Saar in 1972. In 1974, he was appointed professor at the Essen Folkwang-Hochschule, which conducted a pilot project for the development of new training courses in secondary schools I and II (Regensburg and Mainz, 1978) with the newly established course of studies in school music. In 1977, he moved to the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg as head of the course of studies in school music, where he worked until his retirement in 2003.

Born in Königsberg, Gruhn grew up in Arnsberg after his family was expelled from East Prussia in 1945. He studied school music and violin as well as musicology with Arnold Schmitz, German studies with Paul Requadt and psychology with Albert Wellek [de] at the University of Mainz. with a thesis about the instrumentation in the orchestral works of Richard Strauss. He studied as a postgraduate in the Ludwig Bus master class in Saarbrücken. After the first state examination, he first played as a violinist in the Kammerorchester des Saarländischen Rundfunks and completed his pedagogy studies in 1966 with the second state examination for the teaching profession at higher schools. He received his doctorate in musicology in 1967 under the supervision of Hellmut Federhofer at the University of Mainz. He taught at a secondary school in Zweibrücken until 1974, where he also directed the Bibliotheca Bipontina.

Wilfried Gruhn (born 15 October 1939) is a German violinist, musicologist, music educator, and professor emeritus at universities in Germany and abroad. His focus is the music education of small children. He founded and directed the Gordon Institute of early childhood music learning in Freiburg in 2003. He is engaged in several international organisations such as International Society for Music Education (ISME) and the Internationale Leo Kestenberg Gesellschaft which published Leo Kestenberg's complete writings in six volumes.