I'm currently in Beijing attending the Summit on Music Intelligence while meeting old and new friends and delivering three presentations on the role of technology and artificial intelligence on contemporay music composition and production. I decided to fly there and not deliver the speeches online (despite the nearing ICMC) as personal interaction beats the convenience of remote presentation. Here I met (and saw again) Li Xiaobing, Gérard Assayag, Jonathan Wyner, Craig Vear, Guan Xiaohung and a number of young Chinese researchers who are driving the global AI revolution in music. What struck me, is that in the speeches given by the older generation of Chinese academics, is that they emphasize the role of art and humanities in the pursuit of AI. This is an attitude European policy makers could benefit from, who, with their high-tech agendas, lean to much on return on investment and underestimate the role of the arts as a driver of technological progress.
I’m in Tianjin for the inauguration of the Juilliard Imagination, an installation in the basement of the Tianjin branch of the Juilliard school. This school is an American-Chinese joint venture which has been fostered despite recent global disagreements. The installation has been set up by Sony China and includes various multimedia station allowing users to experience and create music. The HfMT had been approached by Joseph Polisi, former president and founding director of TJS, for its expertise in interactive music notation and we contributed both as programmers and advisers to their Signature system which uses a virtual MIDI keyboard projected on a table to record music to a large touch screen. While MaxScore was originally used to render the notation, doctoral student Ren Shihong from the Shanghai conservatory took over on my recommendation the implemention of his own Guido-based solution. This project was started during the pandemic and shows how musicians and technologists from three different continents have worked together to create something unique. I feel honored to be part of this.
Last night, we successfully premiered A Space Journey a gargantuan effort of 80 people crossing the genres of multimedia, microtonality, (popular) science and drama. Thanks to all the participants who with their talents have succeeded in creating something truly special. I was also pleased with the performance of my own music which framed the evening. It is derived from the filament structure of the universe and played in Bohlen-Pierce. We had eight singers and 11 performers singing and playing exclusively in this scale, a scale that opens up a parallel sonic universe with its own rules and harmonic progressions. The evening also featured a variety of dramaturgical approaches integrated with the 12 video wall panels which all could be moved separately: dance, drama, comedy, musical theater even a ventriloquist impersonating the late quantum physicist Gall-Mann. If you happen to be in Hamburg or not too far from it please come and see the second and last show tonight at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama.
Currently in Bangkok. Xiao and I met with members of the outstanding TACET(i) ensemble as well as composer Anothai Nitibhon and dean Komsun Dilokkunanant, both with the Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music. They are in the process of preparing another edition of their PGVIS symposium to which they regularly invite illustrious people. This is also the reason I ran into Jean Geoffroy who had just come to Hamburg in July for the CoPeCo final projects. The world (of contemporary music) is just such a small place! Had we known about the symposium before, we would have certainly attended it, but we’re going to take the train to Chiang Mai tomorrow hoping to be able to listen to the live streams instead.
