Toomas Siitan is engaged in research collaboration with the Arvo Pärt Centre since 2023.
Siitan graduated from the Tallinn State Conservatory (now the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre) in 1981 as a composer and received his PhD from the University of Lund in 2003. Since 1986, he has taught music history at the EAMT, where he was appointed Professor in 2004 and led the Department of Musicology from 2013 to 2023. From 2022 to 2024, he was Visiting Professor at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. His main areas of research are the history and aesthetics of early Western music and musical life in Estonia up to the 20th century, as well as the music of Arvo Pärt. He has taught courses on Pärt’s music at the University of Tartu and the EAMT.
Toomas Siitan was chairman of the board of the Estonian Musicological Society (1992–1997, 2003–2013), vice-chairman of the board of the Estonian Music Council (1999–2017) and board member of the International Fellowship for Research in Hymnology (1993–2005). Since 2015, he has been Editor-in-Chief of the musicological yearbook Res Musica and the publication Estonian History of Music. In 1994, Toomas Siitan founded the Haapsalu Early Music Festival, served as its artistic director until 2024.