Harri Vuori studied composition with Paavo Heininen, Eero Hämeenniemi and Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy and graduated in 1989. He has been composer in residence of the Hyvinkää Orchestra since 1997 and has taught in the Department of Musicology at the University of Helsinki since 1993.
Vuori regards the orchestra as a vast source of potential inspiration, and his orchestral works are dominated by rich timbres, radiant colours and the use of spectral harmony. He has travelled a long way from the Neoclassicism of his youth, via the Modernist experiments of his student days to his present idiom infused with colour. The first manifestations of his mature orchestral style were Kri (1988), S-wüt (1991) and The Mandelbrot Echoes (1995).
From the mid-1990s onwards Harri Vuori has also composed more chamber music, such as the violin sonata Towards the Azure, Beyond for chamber ensemble, Didgeridoo for tuba and piano and Invitation to the Nocturnal Dance for two viols and harpsichord. He also wrote a set of four Shakespeare songs From Day to Dream for tenor and viol. Also in the same chamber music vein have been Galdr for bass clarinet and French horn, the flute quartet Twilight Songsters (Hämärän laulajat) and the flute-clarinet sonata Grey Owl (Harmaa pöllö).
The intensive chamber music period was followed by a return to large ensembles in the orchestral Over the Moon, Under the Sun (Ylitse kuun, alitse päivän, 2002) representing the familiar, picturesque Vuori steeped in lush colour, and Mythic Images, which is a sinfonietta. The First Symphony (2003) was a commission from the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. It is impressive music constructed in broad arches culminating in shamanistic rhythms in the closing movement. Lasting 40 minutes, it is Vuori's biggest work to date. The Second Symphony was premiered in November 2007 by the Hyvinkää Orchestra. It includes astoundingly glittering “spatial” music combined with symphonic grandeur. Vuori has also written concertos: a Bass Clarinet Concerto and a Saxophone Concerto.
His orchestral works also include Die Flöte der Sonne (2007) for voice and orchestra and Elfenmusik (2009), a five-movement suite with all the magic and colour of a fairytale, seasoned with a pinch of the darker sides of the fairytale world. Recent works include Kalliomaalaus (Rock Painting, 2014) inspired by old rock paintings Vuori has been to see in various parts of Southern Finland. It is set on poetry by Eeva Tikka, and the work is not a conventional song cycle but a melodrama for narrator and chamber ensemble. Vuori has also composed Lentoon (To Fly, 2015) for string orchestra as well as a guitar concerto Ctulhu's Dreams (2016) based on the Ctulhu mythology by H.P. Lovecraft. The concerto was commissioned by the Lappeenranta City Orchestra and premiered in 2016.