Recording Studio Session at Ircam with the Incredible REACH and Improtech Musicians @lilichin1111@turndady and @jmmontera , and the @ircam_paris@erc_reach project !
A hymn to the SHENG instrument of which Li-chin is a world-class virtuoso.
Sophtar + Somax2 short improv I did the night before leaving ircam. The instrument responds in a way I really like. What’s going on:
The Sophtar is a feedback instrument, there is a transducer inside the head sound box. Somax2 – a multiagent system for human-machine co-improvisation – runs on the embedded computer of the Sophtar and responds to the human player by evoking structures of the musical data it is trained on. It tunes the bandpass filters in the electroacoustic feedback loop in response to how the bottom three strings are played. The model responds with pitches and onsets following a local stylistic knowledge space. These output pitches are mapped to 12 harmonics and onsets are used to activate the solenoids and trigger amplitude envelopes that shape the electroacoustic feedback of the top five strings. The result is an encounter between the human player and the ghostly traces of the musics that formed the training dataset. The strings effectively become a place of contact between human, machine players, and the musical knowledge they encode.
Grateful to Gérard Assayag, @_marcofiorini and Vasiliki Zachari of the @erc_reach team for hosting me at @ircam_paris ; and @musikfonds.de and @culturemoveseurope for supporting my residency. The residency is part of the project Co-improvising with the Non-human, supported by a Musikfonds scholarship.
#improvisedmusic #experimentalmusic #newinstrument #pushboundaries #creativeeurope
The Represéntations Musicale team is pleased to welcome Professor Danilo Rossetti, composer and researcher, who will be deepening his knowledge of Somax2 at the UMR-STMS. More to come. #danilo_rossetti #m_pow_2 #ircam
I play one string with my fingers and the artificial agent plays the other with solenoids and harmonics. #Somax2 inside the #Sophtar . Having a good time @ircam_paris , thanks @_marcofiorini for arranging things and discussing ideas, @erc_reach for hosting me, and @musikfonds.de for their awesome AI scholarship #newinstrument #ircam #nime #experimentalmusic
Co-Creativity in Music, Sound, and AI 🎶🤖
Join us June 5–6, 2026 at UC Riverside & the Culver Center of the Arts for two days of talks, performances, screenings, workshops, and live concerts exploring creativity between humans and intelligent systems.
Featuring IRCAM Somax2, keynote speakers, guest artists, and UCR student works.
✨ All events are free and open to the public.
📍 UC Riverside + Culver Center of the Arts
📅 June 5–6, 2026
#UCRiverside #MusicAI #CreativeAI #SoundArt #riversidecalifornia
Psappho, after Iannis Xenakis
Lorenzo Colombo percussions
Marco Fiorini AI-Agents Somax2, live electronics
December 2 2025
IMPROTECH CONCERT # 1 at Espace de Projection, Ircam
🔗 full video in bio
Psappho is the third instance of the project Xenakis Reloaded, after Evryiali (2022) and AI-Komboï (2023), paying homage to Xenakis through the choice of a well known piece and an improvised extension using AI. As the continuation of a broader research and performance project developed by Lorenzo Colombo and Marco Fiorini, two artists and researchers dedicated to exploring the creative potentials at the intersection of human and artificial intelligence in music, this new chapter will use Psappha (1975) as its central material. The project will investigate new modes of cyber-human co-creativity by integrating Somax2 and gestural control into an immersive spatialized performance environment. Psappha will serve as the compositional and performative ground, with a focus on gestural and temporal density, rhythmic articulation, and structural complexity, core features of Xenakis’s language, and fertile terrain for this novel interaction.
The Improtech international workshop-festival, part of the European REACH project, explores the fusion of improvisation and digital intelligence through conferences, workshops, performances, and concerts. After global editions, it returns to IRCAM, focusing on space, composition, and improvisation, while honoring George Lewis.
Hosted in IRCAM’s Espace de projection, this edition emphasizes a threefold synthesis: acoustic instruments with interactive AI, solo improvisation with ensemble composition, and spatialized immersive sound enhanced by creative AI—showcasing innovative collaboration across music and technology.
VIdeo: Nicolas Sok, Rikako Takahashi, Lounico Production
Sound: Clément Cerles, Luca Bagnoli, Manuel Poletti, Sylvain Cadars
Improtech recap 🔥
December 7, 2025
REACHin’ Paris
Steve Lehman, Saxophones
Miles Okazaki, Guitar
The Somax Brothers (Gérard Assayag, Marco Fiorini) Somax2 AI Agents
La Dynamo is where I met Gérard Assayag almost four years ago, while playing there with Anaïs del Sordo (💞) and Joëlle Léandre, whom we later included in the REACH project at IRCAM and became a central figure of the REACHing Out! concert series
the place that started my Parisian adventure and the stage that concluded this incredible edition of Improtech @ Paris
a wonderful day of music, dialogue and exchange, with a masterclass for the jazz department of the CNSMDP in the afternoon, before a surprising and engaging concert
I am grateful to the wonderful people and musicians that are Steve Lehman and Miles Okazaki, for being part of this special day but also for sharing music and life together in the last years, and to Gérard for being a great mentor, a brave thinker and for his constant support in my adventures
now off to holidays!
🙏🫶
Séminaire 23 – Improvisations augmentées : entre le geste instrumental et le système génératif
Full seminar video on: https://medias.ircam.fr/fr/media/82267cc769217bc6a4c4
Nice collaboration between Sheng and Reach Projects
Improtech recap 🛸
December 5, 2025
Nomadologies
George Lewis, composition
Joëlle Léandre, bass, voice
Miya Masaoka, koto
Marco Fiorini, Damon Holzborn, George Lewis, Gérard Assayag, SoVo AI system
another milestone in this exciting and challenging project that is the conception of SoVo, a new paradigm and system of improvisation, together with a team of legends
forever grateful 🙏
Improtech recap 🤖
December 3, 2025
Resounding Bodies in Space 🪐
Alberto Maria Gatti
Anaïs del Sordo
Marco Fiorini
Workshop for voice, body harness and co-creative spatial Somax2 agents, with two of my favorite people
