The Extinctions takes listeners on a sonic journey through the Earth’s cyclical history—an ebb and flow of life and extinction, evolution and collapse. Inspired by epochs of flourishing life and sudden cataclysmic events, the work reflects on the delicate and ever-changing balance of our planet’s narrative. It invites contemplation on what remnants of our existence may endure and the enigmatic echoes future generations may discover.

At its core, The Extinctions marries the expressive, organic nature of the cello with the transformative capabilities of real-time electronic processing. The electronics are not merely an accompaniment but an integral voice that weaves through the texture of the piece, shaping the environment, reflecting transitions, and augmenting the natural timbres of the cello. Ambient layers evoke ancient landscapes and shifting geological eras, while decorative digital flourishes mirror biological intricacies and fragile ecosystems.

The work is structured with intentional proportionality—each section’s duration aligns with its place in the larger form, creating a sense of balance and inevitability, much like nature itself. As the piece unfolds, the dialogue between cello and electronics intensifies, evolving from subtle interactions to complex, multilayered textures that suggest the tumultuous crescendo of an impending extinction event.

The Extinctions is not just a musical composition; it is a reflection on survival, legacy, and the cyclical rhythms of life on Earth—a reminder that even as we face uncertainty, sound, like history, can leave its indelible trace.

Jyun-Rong Ho (b. 2001, Taiwan) is a composer whose work blends acoustic and electronic sound worlds with a distinctive poetic sensitivity. He recently completed his Master of Music in Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Professor John Mallia. Ho’s musical journey began with early training in piano and traditional Chinese music, focusing on the Liuqin throughout his school years. He later pursued his Bachelor’s degree at the National Taipei University of Education, where he studied with Yun-Ya Wang and Ya-Min Hsu. These experiences deeply informed his approach to musical structure, color, and cultural identity. Ho’s compositions have been recognized and performed internationally. His work has been featured at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, by the New England Philharmonic, and most recently at NUNC!6, the Northwestern University New Music Conference. In 2021, he won First Prize in the Composition category at the National Taipei University of Education Concerto Competition. As a young artist with a global perspective, Ho continues to explore intersections between technology, tradition, and expressive form, aiming to create immersive and thought-provoking sound experiences.

I have long had a fascination with the night sky. Having grown up in an area with minimal light pollution and then living in larger cities with significant light pollution (such as Chicago), I found myself missing that deep connection to the night sky and to our own natural circadian rhythms. In my travels, I’ve made efforts to seek out Dark Sky locations, and have found myself deeply moved and inspired by these experiences. Dark Sky intends to capture the experiences of camping far away from any sources of light, where the utter blackness of a cloudy night under a new moon can be both frightening and magical.
Dark Sky, for alto flute and fixed media, was written for Alicja Molitorys in 2023 and was composed at the University of Louisville Computer Music Studios.

Dr. Allison Ogden works as an Assistant Professor of Composition and Literature at the University of Louisville. She has a PhD from The University of Chicago, has taught many classes on a wide variety of subjects, enjoys working with her students, has written a number of pieces of music, climbed many mountains and hiked many trails, and brought two human beings into this world.

Combinazioni is a compositional experience that arises from the electronic processing of sound events obtained through the manipulation of small rotating mechanical objects.
Multiple sounds linked to movement and rotation are processed and broken down, subjected to multiple reflections and united in particular sound combinations capable of generating a particularly dynamic and complex sound result, and of recreating sensations of temporal and spatial movement in the listener.

Antonio Forastiero, born in 1986, is an Italian electroacoustic composer and sound designer. Graduated from the Conservatory of Potenza in electronic music and composition, he obtained a master’s degree in Sound and Entertainment Engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He attended masterclasses on electroacoustic composition and integrated audiovisual composition.
He bases his compositional works on the elaboration of his electronically processed naturals, exploring their multiple tonal potentials. His research activity focuses on the relationship between sound and space for the development of particular immersive perceptual experiences. Since 2011 he has been a teacher of Music Technologies in musical high schools.
His works have been selected in various international competitions.

“Where It Takes You” is a piece for solo cello and live effects in SuperCollider. The piece is open-ended and atmospheric, structured around only a few hand-drawn images of a wandering creek, to be interpreted by the performer as graphic scores, or as inspirations for mood and style, or somewhere in between. The electronics are layers of unstable, unpredictable loops of the captured cello sounds. A few suggested chords for the cellist pop up from time to time, creating fleeting points of stability among wild, dense overgrowth.

Composer Kerrith Livengood’s works have been performed at the SEAMUS Conference, KISS 2018, ACO’s SONiC Festival, June in Buffalo, Bargemusic, CCM’s MusicX festivals, the North American Saxophone Alliance annual conference, the Atlantic Music Festival, the Contemporary Undercurrent of Song series, the Cortona Sessions, and Alia Musica Pittsburgh’s Conductors Festival. She has written works for the JACK Quartet, Third Angle Ensemble, Duo Cortona, Altered Sound Duo, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Beattie and pianist Adam Marks, soprano Amy Petrongelli, and the h2 Quartet. Her music features complex grooves, lyricism, noise, and humor. She is also a flutist, drummer, technologist, and improviser, who performs collaborative and experimental works created by herself and others. She received her doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, and previously taught theory and composition at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). Kerrith is also Managing Director of the New Music On The Point Festival, a summer festival for experimental and contemporary music.

We Have Less Time Than You Think deals with the fact that we humans do not really have long: on the smaller-scale, in terms of the things we attempt to immediately accomplish, and on relatively larger scales, in the time we can spend with each other, the duration of our individual existences, and the collective lifespan of the human race. One of the truer clichés, time passes in a blur, fluidly and easily escaping attempts to stop or slow its flow, with certain events standing out in hindsight as demarcations of structural points. In my own experience, the longer I have existed, the more the passage of time seems to speed up exponentially; I certainly feel like I have less time than I thought I did.

Howie Kenty is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer, occasionally known by his musical alter-ego, Hwarg. His music, called “remarkable” with “astonishing poetic power” (International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica), is stylistically diverse, encompassing ideas from contemporary classical, electronic, rock, and ambient genres, as well as sound art, political issues, and visual and theatrical elements. Besides regularly composing and performing his own music, Howie is half of Ju-eh+Hwarg, whose The Living Dying Opera has been called “a profoundly entertaining, interactive night of operatic fun” (New York Music Daily). He plays guitar and composes in the progressive rock group The Benzene Ring, whose album Crossing the Divide has been hailed as “a true masterpiece” and a “gorgeous piece of experimental rock/metal” (Recyclable Sounds; Progarchy). Howie earned his PhD in Music Composition from Stony Brook University, and is an Assistant Professor in the Studio Composition program at Purchase College. Random past fancy bits include a Carnegie Hall performance by PUBLIQuartet, first prize at Shanghai Electronic Music Week, a residency at Copland House, and performing his own raucous experimental political art at National Sawdust. Listen at https://www.hwarg.com.

Anger at the Asteroid reimagines the long lost sound and fury of a Corythosaurus (a duck-billed dinosaur) herd after Chicxulub impact, leading to the extinction of all the non-avian dinosaurs. Dinosaur vocalizations are recreated via biological computational models of bird vocal boxes altered according to dinosaur skull measurements and the CT Scans of adult and subadult Corythosaurus skull fossils. 

Dinosaur vocal calls have been silent since they became extinct following the large asteroid impact event 66 million years ago. Anger at the Asteroid by the Dinosaur Trio brings these vocalizations back to life via the ensemble of hadrosaur skull musical instruments of the Dinosaur Choir project. These instruments create dinosaur sound via CT scans, 3D fabrication, and physically-based modeling synthesis. Musicians give voice to these dinosaur instruments by blowing into a mouthpiece, exciting a computational voice box, and resonating the sound through the recreated dinosaur’s fossilized nasal cavities and skull. Scientists hypothesize that our dinosaur, the Corythosaurus, used its crest and nasal passages for sound resonation. 

The soundscapes of these musical works use the sounds of cicadas, crickets, and frogs, which evolved during the Cretaceous period before the impact, along with fire and combustion sounds after the impact that paint the scene, sometimes forming rhythms. The Dinosaur Trio began in September 2024, with the aim of developing a performance practice with the new hadrosaur skulls and Anger at the Asteroid is the first major outcome of this research. The work is a structured improvisation, with a round robin beginning section between the dinosaurs and later sections that allow for call/response and following and game piece-like signals between musicians, using hand signals and eye contact. 

Courtney Brown and Cezary Gajewski created the Dinosaur Choir musical instruments. Thomas Dudgeon also consulted and provided 3D models and CT Scans of skull specimen ROM 1933 with permission from David Evans and the Royal Ontario Museum. We acknowledge Phillip Currie, Corwin Sullivan, Caleb Brown, and the Dinosaur Paleontology Lab of University of Alberta for consultation, support, and access to fossil specimens. Courtney Brown and Sharif Razzaque created Rawr! Study in Sonic Skulls and we also acknowledge Garth Paine, Carlo Sammarco, Sallye Coyle, Brent Brimhall and Gordon Bergfors for their contributions. We acknowledge Lawrence Witmer and Witmer Lab, Ohio University for providing CT Scans and 3D models for Rawr! A Study in Sonic Skulls for specimen CMN 34825. Rawr! was supported by the Arizona State University GPSA. Dinosaur Choir supported by Fulbright Canada (2022-23), a SMU URC Grant, and the SMU FYRE program. We also thank Adam Neal, Jennifer Ebinger, and Ira Greenberg for their support of this ensemble.

Courtney Brown is a performer/composer, Argentine tango dancer, and researcher combining music with paleontology, dance, and engineering. Her work has been featured globally including Ars Electronica (Austria), National Public Radio (NPR), CICA Museum (South Korea), Telfair Museums (Savannah), Royal Alberta Museum (Canada), and Wired.com. She has received two Fulbrights, for Interactive Tango Milonga, creating interactive Argentine tango dance and for Dinosaur Choir, for her work on dinosaur vocalization. She is an Associate Professor at the Center of Creative Computation, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. For more: https://www.courtney-brown.net.

Qien Shensun is a student at Southern Methodist University majoring in Statistical Science, Data Science and minoring in Computer Science. Her work explores the intersection of data, programming, and music through performance, coding, and digital media. She have participated in Stanford’s SUMaC program and HackSMU, and are a leader in SMU’s Asian Council. With experience in R, Java, and Python, Qien builds creative computing projects that reflect cultural and personal narratives. In music, she is especially interested in how computation and sound can be used to challenge traditional forms and engage audiences through immersive storytelling.

Ella Halverson is a Music (voice specialization) and Psychology double major at Southern Methodist University. She enjoys exploring various aspects of learning and engagement within her communities through different leadership positions and experiences. She has completed 900 volunteer hours and in that has developed a sense of story that drives her art and passion for others. She has been as part of various choirs, including ILMEA District and a diverse range of ensemble and solo performances. She is inspired to help others both through her recent investigation into PFA’s related to water and blood concentrations in the U.S.

The title of the piece is borrowed from Alain Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad, where the words and the memory that contains them distort, filter, corroborate, and even construct each other, resulting in the observation that “conversation took place in a vacuum, as if the words meant nothing, as though they could have no meaning. A sentence would be suspended in space, frozen in its flight, and then could resume its journey there or elsewhere.” All sonic materials are derived from a vibrato F above middle C played on the concert flute, which serves as the metaphor for couloirs, both for their formal resemblance as well as the fact that they are essentially filters—couloirs being the filter for the memory in the film and the flute being the filter of the air and musical note. The piece can be regarded as a process of excavating from the flute various words and voices that speak and sing incomprehensibly but are nevertheless full of expression.

Wei Yang is a composer/sound artist from China. He works with different mediums, through which he often contemplates the body’s role in sound production, sound in space, as well as the integration of various data from the performance environment (reverberation, light, etc.). Wei composes both instrumental and electronic music, and often incorporates various sensors and physical computing to build performative systems that allow dynamic interaction among different actors within the system. His works have been performed internationally, at occasions such as BEAST Festival, NUNC!, ICMC, ISAC Sonosfera, Tomeistertagung, ORF Musikprotokoll, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, SEAMUS, Espacious Sonores, Festival Atemporánea, Nucleo Música Nova SiMN, Sound Image Festival, and Ars Electronica. Wei received his Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Washington under the supervision of Joël François-Durand. He is currently a PhD candidate at the university’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media, working closely with Richard Karpen and Joseph Anderson.

Sluicer is a performance system for spatial audio improvisation, adaptable to various output channel configurations from stereo to high density loudspeaker arrays. In this work, two 20-voice, erratic synthesizers operate as a roving “chorus” under the player’s direction. Both synths have a series of multichannel effects designed to work specifically with high order ambisonic signals, allowing the player to create and alter spatial dimensions. As audio flows, the guiding action is like closing/opening gates in a lock on a waterway. The results are timbral and spatial churns, swells, floods and drains, motion in repetition, expansion, and contraction. Sluicer is programmed in Max with tactile interfaces being high resolution, multi-touch control surfaces and a DJ-style MIDI controller. 

Since 2015, my artistic work and research has been primarily focused on an area within spatial audio involving High Density Loudspeaker Arrays (HDLA) which are typically permanent installations with 24 or more loudspeakers in a cube or hemisphere configuration. Some HDLA facilities feature hundreds of loudspeakers to provide more resolution and precision, and to support a wider range of spatial audio techniques. For this work, I have traveled to various HDLA facilities to participate in residencies and workshops and to perform/present at conferences and festivals. 

Sluicer is the most recent performance system I have developed that focuses on HDLAs as new interfaces for musical expression. A core strategy in Sluicer is the use of spatially positioned, multichannel audio effects that alter specific regions of a sound field rather than the audio signal of a specific source (e.g. instrument, voice, track). This approach makes it possible to lock an effect at spatial coordinates such that an audio source moving in 3d space is transformed when its path crosses into a specific zone.

Shawn Greenlee is a composer, sound artist, and Professor at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he leads the Studio for Research in Sound & Technology (SRST) and is the Department Head for Digital + Media. His recent work explores spatial audio, high density loudspeaker arrays, and erratic sound synthesis techniques. Greenlee has been active as a solo electronic / electroacoustic improvisor since 1997 and has toured extensively across the US and Europe. Conference and festival performances include New Interfaces for Musical Expression (2024 Utrecht, 2018 Blacksburg, 2015 Baton Rouge, 2014 London, 2013 Daejeon), International Computer Music Conference (2021 Santiago, 2018 Daegu, 2011 Huddersfield, 2005 Barcelona), BEAST FEaST (2017 Birmingham), PdCon16 (2016 New York), Cube Fest (2024, 2019, 2016 Blacksburg), Re-new (2013 Copenhagen), IN TRANSIT (2008 Berlin), and Elevate (2007 Graz), among others. Greenlee holds a Ph.D. in Computer Music and New Media from Brown University.

The symbolic abstraction of origin, motion of circle, and the reflection of evolution can be implemented in numerous forms and timespans and can inspire provocative insights into everyday life. Four custom-made controllers of two sizes are used for the performance. Each controller can be performed individually or together with the other three, creating an immersive musical experience.

Chi Wang is a composer and performer of electroacoustic music. Her research and compositional interests include sound design, data-driven instruments creation, musical composition, and performance. Chi’s compositions have been performed internationally including presentations at the International Computer Music Conference, New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Musicacoustica-Beijing, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States Conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Kyma International Sound Symposia, Electronic Music Midwest Festival, Third Practice Electroacoustic Music Festival, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, Portland Biennial of Contemporary Art, I. Paderewski Conservatory of Music in Poland, International Confederation of Electro-Acoustic Music, and WOCMAT in Taiwan. Chi’s compositions were selected for SEAMUS CDs, Best Composition from the Americas from International Computer Music Conference, Pauline Oliveros New Genre Prize from International Alliance for Women in Music, Award of Distinction from MA/IN International Festival of Digital and Creative Culture festival, International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music Competition Prix CIME, and finalist at Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. Chi has also served as a judge for international electronic music competitions including Musicacostica-Beijing, Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States national conferences and International Computer Music Conference. Chi is also an active translator for electronic music related books, including Kyma and the SumOfSines Disco Club and Electronic Music Interactive. Chi received her D.M.A. at the University of Oregon in the Performance of Data-driven Instruments and is currently an assistant professor of music (composition: electronic and computer music) at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Serie 410 is an acousmatic piece that explores the boundary between real and virtual by proposing to listen to sounds organized according to a typically instrumental language. Art and technology therefore become means to falsify reality by suggesting as real something that is instead the result of technological manipulation. The piece also proposes a diagonal crossing of the different categories of electronic compositions in use today. Indeed this acousmatic work could also be perceived as a recording of a piece for mixed media or even for instruments and live electronics. 

Serie 410 was born from the recording of a piano improvisation made using a twelve-tone series as musical material. The recording was superimposed on a copy of it played backwards. The sounds of the piano dialogue with percussion sounds, also elaborated with electronic means, to create small iridescent sound universes

Costantino Rizzuti is a composer and sound artist. He is author of pieces of acousmatic music and live electronics, sound and audio-visual installations and live performances presented in national and international conferences, festivals and exhibitions. He graduated at Conservatory S. Giacomantonio in Cosenza in Electronic Music. In June 2012, He won the IX edition of the national award for Italian conservatory students “Premio delle Arti”, section Music and new technologies with the composition Advaita, for flute and live electronics. He teaches electroacoustics at the Conservatory S. Giacomantonio in Cosenza and is the founder of Artis Lab an electronic music studio devoted to the design and construction of new experimental electronic musical instruments.

Jouer is an immersive composition for amplified soprano saxophone and electronics that explores sounds associated with “play”—sports, balls bouncing or being hit, playground and amusement park sounds, sounds of various children’s toys, balloons, video games, swimming pool games, trampolines, casinos, racetrack sounds, and much more. The electronics lead the listener through various soundscapes associated with the theme, while the saxophone part interacts with the evolving timbres and unifies the various sound worlds. Reid composed the piece at Yaddo and MacDowell as part of her Guggenheim Fellowship.

Leah Reid is a composer, sound artist, researcher, and educator, whose works range from opera, chamber, and vocal music, to acousmatic, electroacoustic works, and interactive sound installations. Winner of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship, Reid has also won the American Prize, as well as first prizes in the International “New Vision” Composition Competition, the KLANG! International Electroacoustic Composition Competition, and Musicworks’ Electronic Music Competition. Additional accolades include Sound of the Year’s Composed with Sound Award, IAWM’s Pauline Oliveros Award, and second prizes in the Iannis Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition and the International Destellos Competition. She has received fellowships from the Guerilla Opera Company, Copland House, the Hambidge Center, MacDowell, VCCA, the Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo. Reid has worked with and received commissions from ensembles such as Accordant Commons, Blow Up Percussion, Concavo & Convesso, Ensemble Móbile, Excelsis, Guerilla Opera, JACK Quartet, McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Neave Trio, the Piedmont Duo, Sound Gear, Talea, and Yarn/Wire. Her compositions have been presented at festivals, conferences, and in major venues throughout the world, including Aveiro_Síntese (Portugal), BEAST FEaST (England), Espacios Sonoros (Argentina), EviMus (Germany), Forgotten Spaces: EuroMicrofest (Germany), ICMC (USA, Chile & Ireland), IRCAM’s ManiFeste (France), LA Philharmonic’s Noon to Midnight (USA), the Matera Intermedia Festival (Italy), NYCEMF (USA), the OUA Electroacoustic Music Festival (Japan), the SF Tape Music Festival (USA), Série de Música de Câmara (Brazil), the SCI National Conference (USA), Soochow New Voice Concert Series (China), the SMC Conference (Germany), the Tilde New Music Festival (Australia), TIES (Canada), and WOCMAT (Taiwan), among many others. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia.

The sound sources of Soundscape beyond black and white were solely drawn from recording fragments of playing inside the piano The sources were then manipulated and transformed through several techniques of digital audio signal processing to build up the needed and desired timbres and sonic gestures of this composition. 

Those processed “inner sounds” of pianoforte were then “organized”(in E. Varese’s word) or “digital micro-montaged”(in H. Vaggione’s word) to compose a musical composition with artistic interests and imaginary soundscape. 

However, Soundscape beyond black and white is neither abstract nor so much representational, but oscillates between the real and virtual or “concrete” and abstract soundscapes to create the beauty of Ying and Yang in Chinese philosophy. 

Soundscape beyond black and white was completed as a 2-channel work, but could be possibly live diffused into multi-channel sound system while concert performance. The work was finished at Sound Lab at National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University (NYCU) in 2023 and revised in 2025.

Yu-Chung Tseng, receiving his DMA from UNT in Texas, is a professor of electronic music composition and serves as the director of multi-channel Sound Lab at Institute of Music at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University(NYCU) in Taiwan. 

His music, written for both acoustic and electronic media, has been recognized with selection/awards from Pierre Schaeffer International Computer Music Competition (1st Prize/2003), Città di Udine International Contemporary Music Competition, Musica Nova (First Prize/2010), Metamorphoses, International Computer Music Conference(ICMC, Best Music Award/2011/2015/2022),Taukay Edizioni Musicali call for Acousmatic Music(Winner/2019), and RMN Classical Electroacoustic call for work(Winner/2023),Polish International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Finalist/2023),and KLANG International Acousmatic Composition Competition(Second Prize/2023). 

Tseng’s works have also received many performances at festivals and conferences, including Taiwan-CLAB, ICMC, NYCEMF, Musicacoustica, SICMF, Visiones Sonoras Festiva,La Hora Acusmatica, EMW, FIME, MUSLAB,Schumann Festival, ACL, Musica Nova, Taiwan-France Exchange and Chengdu International Electronic Music Festival..etc. 

His music can be heard on labels including CDCM (U.S.A.), Discontact iii (Canada), Pescara (It.), Contemporanea (It.), Metamorphoses (Belgium), SEAMUS (USA), KECD2 (Demark), Musica Nova (Czech), ICMC 2011 DVD and ICMC 2015 CD , IL SUONO DELLE LINGUE(It.), Electroacoustic & Beyond 7 (UK).

Ars Suita (the art of the suite) is an acousmatic work that revisits the panegyric trio suite “Concert instrumental sous le titre d`Apothéose de Monsieur de Lully”, composed by François Couperin (1668-1733) and published in Paris in 1735. This suite serves as an homage to the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was one of the most important composers of the French Baroque era. As the music director of the royal court of France, Lully’s compositions had a significant impact on French musical style. Couperin’s “Apotheosis” is a suite of pieces that includes a prelude, several dances, and a final chaconne. The suite showcases Couperin’s skill in composing for a variety of instrumental combinations, including strings, winds, and continuo. Its graceful melodies, refined harmonies, and intricate counterpoint are all characteristic of the French Baroque style. 

Ars Suita is structured in nine movements that follow the same structure as the original piece by Couperin. The material for each of the movements is derived from an audio recording of the original “Apotheosis” with early music instruments. Each movement uses a different sound processing technique, creating a particular sonic character for each part of this acousmatic suite. 

Like many Baroque composers, Couperin paid tribute to his predecessors and contemporaries through his music. In the same spirit, Ars Suita is a small homage to Couperin, and indirectly to Lully. Composed in a home studio and mastered at CITALAB, Department of Electrical Engineering, Campus San Joaquín, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Rodrigo F. Cádiz is a composer, researcher and engineer. He studied composition and electrical engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) in Santiago and he obtained his Ph.D. in Music Technology from Northwestern University. His compositions, consisting of approximately 70 works, have been presented at several venues and festivals around the world. His catalogue considers works for solo instruments, chamber music, symphonic and robot orchestras, visual music, computers, and new interfaces for musical expression. He has received several composition prizes and artistic grants both in Chile and the US. He has authored around 70 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and international conferences. His areas of expertise include sonification, sound synthesis, audio digital processing, computer music, composition, new interfaces for musical expression and the musical applications of complex systems. He has obtained research funds from Chilean governmental agencies, such Fondecyt and CNCA. He received a Google Latin American Research Award (LARA) in the field of auditory graphs. In 2018, Rodrigo was a composer in residence with the Stanford Laptop orchestra (SLOrk) at the Center for Computer-based Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and a Tinker Visiting Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford University. In 2019, he received the prize of Excellence in Artistic Creation from UC, given for outstanding achievements in the arts. In 2024, he was a visiting researcher at the Orpheus Instituut in Belgium. He is currently full professor at the Music Institute and Electrical Engineering Department of UC.

Derivation of the title is from my last email exchange with composer Clarence Barlow where he asked me “Do you know how to write “Fumohihimo” in Japanese Katakana? フモヒヒモ.” Fittingly this is not a word but rather more onomatopoeia. Barlow noted “It seems to mean “Imohi string”, whatever that is”. Discussion with the native Japanese speaking composer Yukiko Yoden revealed that “Fumohihimo evokes the image of something soft and fluffy floating in the air.” She further explained that floating in this case alludes to “something thin and light that moves as if it were fluttering”. This seems to align rather well with momnoboards string within magnetic field of the ebow. 

The technical side: A single string is transduced by two pickups (the monoboard). The signal is processed by 16 delay lines and 16 convolution kernels. The algorithm controlling the delay times is controlled by the performer via a pad controller. There are 912 impulse responses (IR’s), from a 16×57 grid of the monoboard, each used one time. Special thanks to Mark Rau for capturing these IR’s. The spatial position is composed by arraying sets of 16 delay line – IR streams over the course of 480000 milliseconds (you can guess what sample rate is employed). The spatial position of each delay line – IR combination in the sound field corresponds to the location of the IR on the monoboard surface. The video display is a didactic display of spatial positioning and textural material reacting to audio features.

Christopher Jette is a curator of lovely sounds, creating work as a composer and media artist. His creative work explores the artistic possibilities at the intersection of human performers/creators and technological tools. A highly collaborative artist, Jette has created works that involve dance, theater, websites, architecture, light arrays, sculpture, food, toys, typewriters, cell phones, reindeer herd data and good ol’ fashioned wood and steel instruments. Before ICMC25 Jette resided at 37°25’19.1994″N 122°7’58.08″W. His next port of call is 42°21’26.32389″N 071°06’29.86487″W. He is currently obsessed with making music with a single string. Interesting things to discuss with him include living in Alaska and sailing from San Francisco to La Paz. More at https://cj.lovelyweather.com/

HUNT explores humanity’s relentless pursuit of Truth, embodied on stage by the interaction between a performer and incandescent light bulbs. The performer, initially hesitant in the dark, begins to explore his surroundings with growing confidence. This confidence, however, turns to excess, triggering the light—a presence that alternates between menace and allure. 

The dynamic oscillation between dominance and loss of control shapes the performance, underscoring humanity’s stubbornness and frustration. Sound amplifies these shifting moods, contrasting the performer’s concrete, visceral identity with the synthetic, abstract presence of light. The ritual use of hand gestures adds a primordial, spell-like quality, evoking humanity’s raw creative power beyond words. The performer’s evolving use of symbolic tools mirrors humanity’s growing awareness, while light transforms from a fixed, imperturbable entity to an omnipresent, elusive force. Immersive sound spatialization draws the audience into the heart of the performance, turning them into integral participants in the experience. 

HUNT reconstructs humanity’s unyielding thirst for knowledge through a sound theater performance that grows increasingly tense, visceral, and desperate.

Jacopo Cenni (1995) is an Italian composer, media artist and live performer. His poetics focus on the investigation of the relationship between theatrical gesture and sound art, with the adoption of an ecosystemic approach to music composition. 

His relationship with technology is crucial: Cenni explodes the poetic and dramaturgical elements of his composition in several mediums, employing sound, light, and theatrical gestures. 

His works have been presented in festival and venues like La Biennale di Venezia (IT), Glasgow Science Center (UK), Festival Chigiana (IT), ZiMMT (DE), Fondazione Luigi Nono (IT), XXVI CIM (IT) among others. 

His recent interests include the relationship between choreography and music, taking part in multidisciplinary projects like Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (FR) and Teatro Out Off (IT). 

Simultaneously to his career in the field of contemporary classical music and electroacoustic, Cenni also works in contemporary theatre as composer, sound and light designer, performing at venues such as Hangar Bicocca (IT), Nau Ivanow (ES), Teatro Basilica Roma (IT), Teatro Verdi Milano (IT) and others. 

Cenni is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. in New Musical Languages at the Conservatory of Cesena (IT). His project, MANDRAGORA, develops an integrated workspace for assisted music and choreography composition.

Satellites is a suite of three pieces for piano and electronics. Each piece in the suite references Bach’s Goldberg Variations, specifically Variations 16, 17, and 18, and refers to some quality in the character and of those works. Satellites is also a part of a larger series of works drawing on the sound and science of flight and space. The music commemorates the work of early African American astronauts Robert Lawrence, Jr., Michael P. Anderson, and Ronald E. McNair, all of whom gave their lives to space research in the time preceding and around the era of the space shuttle. 

The Satellites are so-called because they revolve around other pieces in this series, deriving musical material from them that is presented in new ways here and suggesting new material for future work. In Satellite 1, frequencies collected from words spoken by astronaut Michael P. Anderson during an interview from space are converted to pitches and the pitches provide the principal harmonies of the work. Satellite 2 draws on the distinctive parabolic curve of the space shuttle’s flight to space, tracking altitude data from liftoff to main engine cutoff point. This same curve is used to structure the upwards trajectory in the phrases of piano music over the course of the piece. And in Satellite 3, the sound of an F-104 Starfighter airplanes that Robert Lawrence, Jr. flew as a test pilot are analyzed for their component frequencies and then used to provide a harmonic model for the piece. These harmonies, derived from the sound of a single flyby, are stretched over the length of the piece by way of an mlp regressor, a neural network that is used here to interpolate between the harmonic stages taken from the original analysis of the frequencies in the airplane sound. 

The electronics of the piece include Ircam’s Antescofo~ score following technology. Here the resulting electronic sounds are used principally to reinforce and extend the resonances of the piano. The space shuttle itself might be seen as a sophisticated airplane that’s been souped up with the power of its massive liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engines, creating a deeply studied yet delicate and precarious flight. Similarly, the electronics in this piece enhance the pianist’s expressive intensity, supporting her performance in the pursuit of a kind of musical escape velocity.

Matt Schumaker’s music engages with research into computer-assisted composition, interactive computer music with performers, and visual music. He received a doctorate in Music Composition from UC Berkeley (UCB), where he studied with Edmund Campion, Franck Bedrossian, David Wessel and others. Early on in his studies, Schumaker spent a formative year in Amsterdam, studying with Louis Andriessen. Later on, he travelled to France through UCB’s Prix de Paris program, where he worked closely with Martin Matalon. 

In recent years, Schumaker’s music has been performed by the UC Berkeley Symphony, Radius Ensemble, Dinosaur Annex, Winsor Music, New Music Works, Eco Ensemble, and the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble. Schumaker’s music has also been presented at festivals and curated events, including by clarinetist Rane Moore at the Virtual SICPP 2020, by pianist Chia- Lin Yang at the April in Santa Cruz Festival, by members of Dog Trio at the klub katarakt Festival for Experimental Music in Hamburg, Germany, by clarinetist Joshua Rubin at the soundSCAPE festival in Blonay, Switzerland, and by pianist Eric Huebner as part of the Gassmann Electronic Music Series at UC Irvine. Schumaker’s multimedia work for music and computer graphics has been shown at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville and at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum in Saint Augustine. 

From 2015-17, Schumaker was a Lecturer at UCB, teaching courses in computer music and music perception and cognition. During 2018-20, he was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar at MIT. In fall 2021, he joined the Music Department at UC Santa Cruz as assistant professor.

Raphael Radna is a composer and computer music researcher working in acousmatic music, mixed music, computer-assisted composition, spatial audio, and creative music software development. He has presented music and research worldwide in such venues as the International Computer Music Conference, the International Conference on Digital Audio Effects, the Hear Now Music Festival, and the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, and has collaborated with acclaimed artists including the Brightwork Ensemble, the Onix Ensemble, HOCKET, Shanna Pranaitis, and the Isaura String Quartet. His music technology work includes the Space Control spatialization software, the Xenos stochastic synthesizer, and projects for prominent developers Arturia and Cycling ‘74. His publications include a chapter in “Meta-Xenakis: New Perspectives on Iannis Xenakis’s Life, Work, and Legacies” from Open Book Publishers. 

Raphael holds a BA cum laude in Music from Vassar College, an MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College, and an MS in Media Arts and Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is a PhD candidate in Music Composition. He has had the privilege of studying with João Pedro Oliveira, Curtis Roads, and Clarence Barlow.

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” ― Rumi

The music of Steven Snowden has been described as “A visceral evocation of raw communal memories” (GoldenPlec, Dublin), “Beguiling… combining force with clarity” (San Francisco Classical Voice), “Wonderfully dynamic” (Interlude Hong Kong), “Marvelously evocative”, (Cleveland Plain Dealer), and “The most wildly intriguing sight and sound I have experienced at a concert” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer). Writing music for dance, theater, multi-media installations, and the concert stage, his work often focuses on underground American history and how past events relate to modern society. While his musical influences are deeply rooted in bluegrass, folk, and rock, he utilizes non-traditional techniques and processes to compose works that don’t squarely align with any single genre or style. 

A native of the Ozarks countryside, he began studies in music composition in 2002 and received degrees from Missouri State University (BM), University of Colorado at Boulder (MM), and University of Texas at Austin (DMA). In 2012-2013 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Portugal, researching the implementation of motion tracking technology as a means to facilitate collaboration between music and dance. In 2013-2014, he was a visiting professor and composer in residence at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and is the co-founder/director of the Fast Forward Austin Music Festival. He currently works as a freelance composer in Boston and when he’s not writing music, you can find him deep in the woods foraging for mushrooms with his wife, violist Lauren Nelson

cylinder lullaby I is the first of five movements comprising arco, a half hour work for violin, video, & tape. Slowly bringing the violin and electronic media closer together, this movement draws us into the visual and sonic world expanded on in future movements. The violin’s repeatedly descending lines counterpoint the electronic’s slow movement upwards. The movement’s final drastic swell of electronic sound imitates the violin’s crescendos that end each phrase. Enjoy the Iowan sunrise.

Ted Moore (he / him) is a composer, improviser, and intermedia artist whose work fuses sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic elements, often incorporating technology to create immersive, multidimensional experiences. 

Ted’s music has been presented by leading cultural institutions such as MassMoCA, South by Southwest, Lucerne Forward Festival, The Walker Art Center, and National Sawdust and presented by ensembles such as Talea Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, the [Switch~ Ensemble], and the JACK Quartet. Ted has held artist residences with the Phonos Foundation in Barcelona, the Arts, Sciences, & Culture Initiative at the University of Chicago, and the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in Amsterdam. His sound art installations combine DIY electronics, embedded technologies, and spatial sound have been featured around the world including at the American Academy in Rome and New York University. 

Ranging from concert stages to dirty basements, Ted is a frequent improviser on electronics and has appeared with dozens of instrumental collaborators across Europe and North America including on releases for Carrier Records, Mother Brain Records, Noise Pelican Records, and Avid Sound Records. Described as “frankly unsafe” by icareifyoulisten.com, performances on his custom, large-scale software instrument for live sound processing and synthesis, enables an improvisational voice rooted in free jazz, noise music, and musique concrète. 

After completing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Chicago, Ted served as a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Creative Coding at the University of Huddersfield as part of the ERC-funded FluCoMa project, where he investigated the creative potential of machine learning algorithms and taught workshops on how artists can use machine learning in their creative music practice

Youngmi Cho is a composer based in Seoul, Korea, teaching at Chonnam National University and Kookmin University. She also serves as editor of the Korean computer music journal Emille. Her works has been performed in Singapore Asian Composers Festival, Young Asian Musicians’ Connection in Taiwan, SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy, HighScore Contemporary Music Festival in Italy, Etchings International Contemporary Music Festival in France, International Forum on Acoustical Ecology in Greece, TIMARA Electronic Music Workshops in US, KOCOA Music Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and ICMC in Korea, etc. She was a winner composer of Singapore Asian Composers League and was recipient of the 1st prize in the Illinois State Arts Tech Annual. She holds a Ph.D. in music from Duke University, an MSci from the Illinois State University, and BMus from Seoul National University.

CHIRP depicts a sunrise in three short scenes. It explores two birdsong quotations from Olivier Messiaen’s Orchestral work Réveil des oiseaux (1953), the Nightjar, representing the night, and the Woodlark, representing the day. Through various means I try to create a liminal space between Messiaen’s interpretation of birdsong and my own.

Willyn Whiting (he/him) is a Canadian composer of both acoustic, electronic and mixed music. His stylistic interests include Microtonality, Spectralism, Acoustic Ecology, and Algorithmic Design. Over the years he has worked with the Bozzini Quartet, Del Sol String Quartet, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and RE: duo. His music been featured at such festivals as Winnipeg New Music Festival (CA), Manchester Theatre in Sound Festival (UK), Resilience Festival (IT), Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States Annual Conference (US) and workshops such as Orford Academy, Montréal Contemporary Music Lab, and Domaine Forget de Charlevoix. His teachers include Jon Nelson, Joseph Klein, Panayiotis Kokoras, Kirsten Soriano, Paul Frehner, Gary Kulesha, James Rolfe, and Vincent Ho, among others.

Dear Charles is a multichannel real-time performance composition using a custom sensor-based interface, software developed with Cycling 74’s Max, and Symbolic Sound’s Kyma. The inspiration for this work came from the charm and vibrancy of Boston, particularly along the Charles River. To capture the essence of this beautiful location, I incorporated the sounds from guitars, water droplets, crystals, wind, flowing water, and words from Longfellow’s poem To the River Charles to depict the river’s transition from winter’s frozen stillness to spring’s surging energy.

Sunhuimei Xia is a faculty member in the Composition Department at Wuhan Conservatory of Music. She holds DMA in Data-Driven Instrument Composition and Performance from the University of Oregon and MM in Computer Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. She studied under esteemed composers Feng Jian, Liu Jian, Geoffrey Wright, and Jeffrey Stolet, equipping her with a robust professional foundation and a global academic perspective. 

Her work focuses on the creation, performance, teaching, and research of computer music, with research areas spanning artificial intelligence music composition and applications, interactive data-driven instruments, algorithmic composition, and data sonification. She is dedicated to exploring the deep integration of music and technology. 

As a selected member of the Ministry of Culture’s Music Entrepreneurship and Innovation Talent Pool, her works combine artistic depth with innovative concepts. Her compositions have received prestigious accolades, including the Hubei Music “Golden Bianzhong Award,” and her computer music works have been showcased at top international conferences and exhibitions such as ICMC, ISMIR, NIME, SMC, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, EMM, IRCAM, WOCMAT, and Musicacoustica-Beijing, with performances across multiple countries. 

Her scholarly work has been published in core journals and presented at professional conferences domestically and internationally. She has also guided her students to numerous awards in both international and national competitions. As the principal investigator or key participant in several national, provincial, and institutional research projects, she actively contributes to advancing the integration of arts and technology, infusing fresh vitality into this interdisciplinary field.

After poems by Rainer Maria Rilke

Rilke wrote the fifteen poems that make up his late cycle “Windows” around 1925, following the famous avalanche of creativity that yielded his two greatest works, the Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus. Conceived in Valais, Switzerland, for and about his lover Baladine Klossowska, the new poems were written not in German but in French, a language that allowed for an unusual degree of linguistic and formal freedom as Rilke reflects on windows from many different aspects. Addressing his subject in the familiar “you,” he considers both the window’s formal capacity to focus our perception and its instrumental power to transmit light. The two poems in this setting display each of these tendencies. The first contemplates the window’s productive geometry, making everything that appears within its frame more beautiful. The second sees the window as an instrument of the heavens, like the constellation Lyra, mythical resting place of Orpheus’s harp.

This musical setting draws out the connection between the poems by treating them as one continuous movement. The electronic landscape amplifies the poetic imagery with sounds derived not only from the singer’s voice and the instruments within the ensemble but also from windowpanes and the astronomical data of Vega, Lyra’s brightest star.

1. Geometry (poem III)

N’es-tu pas notre géométrie,

fenêtre, très simple forme

qui sans effort circonscris

notre vie énorme ?

Celle qu’on aime n’est jamais plus belle

que lorsqu’on la voit apparaître

encadrée de toi; c’est, ô fenêtre,

que tu la rends presque éternelle.

Tous les hasards sont abolis. L’être

se tient au milieu de l’amour,

avec ce peu d’espace autour

dont on est maître.

Are you not our geometry,

Window, you simple form

effortlessly circumscribing

Our enormous life?

The one you love is never more beautiful

Than when you see her appearing

In your frame, oh window;

You make her almost eternal.

All dangers abolished, our being

Stands in the middle of love

With this bit of space around it

That we control.

1. Constellations (poem XV)

Depuis quand nous te jouons

avec nos jeux, fenêtre!

Comme la lyre, tu devais être

rendue aux constellations!

Instrument tendre et fort

de nos âmes successives,

arrache enfin de nos sorts

ta forme définitive!

Monte! Tourne de loin

autour de nous qui te fîmes.

Soyex, astres, les rimes

trouvées a nos bouts de destin!

How long have we played you,

with our eyes, window!

Like the lyre, you should be

Returned to your constellation!

Instrument of our consequent souls,

Tender and strong,

pull your definitive form

From our destiny!

And rise! From afar

Turn around us who created you.

Stars, be the rhymes

At the end of our end!

Butch Rovan is a composer, performer, media artist, and instrument designer who has served on the faculty of the department of Music at Brown University since 2004. 

Rovan’s compositions have been performed all over the world, receiving early recognition in two of the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competitions as well as a first prize in the Berlin Transmediale Festival. His multipart installation “Let us imagine a straight line” was selected for the 14th WRO International Media Art Biennale in Poland. He has recorded on the Wergo, EMF, Circumvention, and SEAMUS labels. 

The design of sensor hardware and wireless microcontroller systems for musical performance represents a central part of Rovan’s creative work, which has yielded two patents. Among his most recent projects are the TOSHI, a new conductor interface for orchestral synthesis, and a new accessible technology that allows non-sighted composers to program interactive computer music. His research has been featured in The Computer Music Journal, including in a special anthology presenting his custom GLOBE controller. A seminal essay written with Vincent Hayward was highly influential for the field of haptics, and a later piece on alternate controllers was included in Riley and Hunter’s “Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research,” published by Palgrave Macmillan. 

Earlier in his career, Rovan served as compositeur en recherche with the Real-Time Systems Team at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris, and then as a faculty member at Florida State University and the University of North Texas, where he headed the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia. At Brown, he directed the Brown Arts Initiative from 2016-19, where he was instrumental in the design and planning of the Lindemann Performing Arts Center.

This Performance presents an artistic research project exploring the performance of John Cage’s “Solo for Sliding Trombone” using AI generative tools within the Somax2 environment. The performance investigates the interplay between human interpretation, AI-assisted performance, and Cage’s core concepts of silence, indeterminacy, and unintentionality. By integrating AI agents as virtual performers and employing techniques like “coloring the silence” and “expansions,” the research aims to push the boundaries of Cage’s indeterminacy. This artistic research resulted in a unique set of improvised performances, captured and presented in a box set with 7 distinct tracks, showcasing the dynamic interplay between human and AI creativity within the framework of Cage’s innovative musical philosophy.

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage’s romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage’s teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage’s major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.[7] The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text and decision-making tool, became Cage’s standard composition tool for the rest of his life.[8] In a 1957 lecture, “Experimental Music”, he described music as “a purposeless play” which is “an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living”.

Cage’s best known work is the 1952 composition 4′33″, a piece performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who perform the work do nothing but be present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is intended to be the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.[10][11] The work’s challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. These include Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

On the occasion of Luigi Nono’s birth centenary, I respond to his classic work for piano and tape, “..sofferte onde serene..” (1976-77), with a new work, which extends Nono’s techniques through live AI tools and interactive multimedia. The work reflects on problems of authorship, authenticity and authority in musical AI, namely the disturbing potential of human inferiority – the fact that we all are potentially “bugs” (with its multiple connotations), and we might have to accept a lower status in a new (or not so new) hierarchy. To do so, the work assumes an AI, as if alien, invasion of sorts, inspired by the “dark forest hypothesis”, term coined by the Chinese sci-fi author Liu Cixin as a response to the Fermi paradox. The musical score consists of a dense interactive video featuring borrowed cinematic materials of authoritative figures conducting, instructing, ordering, insulting and abusing the performer; augmented interactive tablatures; music notation and video synths, projected in real-time, and driving a combination of improvised, comprovised and fixed musical materials. These include the author’s previous recordings of works by Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis, Maurice Ravel, which are remixed through a combination of SOMAX2 and GesTCom, and live controlled through inertial sensors and an MPE controllers. Thus, both human and machine are trained and constrained, and sparks of resistance are not missing: More than following, GesTCom here has a function of unfollowing: the learned gestures are intentionally obstructed, or the tolerance of the motion follower algorithm is set extremely low, so that the system cannot follow, thus sabotaging its initial intent. As a result, various drones occur, as the supervp.scrub~ object allows resynthesized audio output to be time-stretched, transposed in pitch and undergo several spectral envelope transformations. The virtuosity involved in controlling the SOMAX2 in live settings is nontrivial, and so is the possibility to enter a dialogue with materials already learned and recorded, but also to surprise the system as well as the human performer with alien materials not featuring in the Nono score or in the recordings. Several degrees of distancing (same, similar and alien material) of the human pianist from the original material used to train SOMAX2 result in a variety of interactions, reflecting the echoes and resonances of Nono’s own political aesthetics.

Pavlos Antoniadis is a contemporary music pianist, musicologist and creative technologist, currently Associate Professor of Music Communication and Technology at the University of Ioannina, research collaborator with the team ISMM and the ERC REACH at IRCAM, and PhD supervisor and visiting lecturer at Lund University, Malmö. His artistic programming features complexity, extremes of physicality, live electronics, multimedia, sensors, XR and AI. His research focuses on 4E cognition, on computational applications for technology-enhanced learning and performance, and on music biopolitics. Ηe has performed in Europe, North & South America and Asia with the new music ensembles Work in Progress-Berlin, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Phorminx, ERGON, Accroche Note, Contemporary Insights. As a soloist, he has worked with composers such as Mark Andre, Helmut Lachenmann, Brian Ferneyhough, Wolfgang Rihm, Tristan Murail, Richard Barrett, Walter Zimmermann, Wieland Hoban, and he has premiered solo piano works by James Erber, Nicolas Tzortzis, Andrew R. Noble, Luis Antunes Pena, Dominik Karski, Lula Romero, Frank Cox, Michael Edward Edgerton among others. He has recorded for Mode (2015 German Recording Critics Award/Deutscheschallplattenkritikspreis), Wergo and Diatribe Records. He is the author of two forthcoming monographs from Wolke Verlag and EUR-ArTeC and a collective volume on the music of Anestis Logothetis. Pavlos studied the piano with Chryssi Partheniade, Ian Pace, Geoffrey Douglas Madge and Aleck Karis. In ensemble performance, he was a Fellow of Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien. He holds a prize-winning PhD in musicology from the University of Strasbourg in co-direction with the IRCAM, an MA in piano performance from the University of California, San Diego on a Fulbright Scholarship, and an MA in music studies from the University of Athens. He has conducted post-doctoral research at EUR-ArTeC, Université Paris 8 and at the TU Berlin – Audiokommunikation.

“Echoes of the Machine Mind I” is an improvised set of music. It is numbered as it is an evolving project. Being improvised is different every time even though I have written out structures (that I change and modulate) that work as a framework. Each structured is divided in what I call Scenarios; I can get from one to another even changing the order extemporaneously and each scenario has a set of mapped elements or changes in the parameters in the Max patch.

“Echoes of the Machine Mind I” makes use of a Max patch that integrates Somax2. The Somax2 system is structured with a Server and Players corresponding to voice modules in the modular synth, a samples player and a doublebass player into which I also record corpuses in real time.
The rest of the patch includes processes and effects on the doublebass, a 2 head looper with speed control and processes on each of the synth voices.

In this way I have control over the sounds generated (in the Max patch and through the eurorack synth patching) but still I have a lot of extemporaneous interaction through the use of Agents, which are interconnected, for generation and modulation.

In the improvisation of “Echoes of the Machine Mind I” I use various combinations. The doublebass is played with the bow and processed while interacting with the player controlling the E330 module (a two voice digital cloud module) with modulations coming from Lfos and by converting the loudness and pitch of the bass in CV. I also have the Agent PlayerBass playing a corpus made from a recorded improvisation of myself playing Pizzicato Harmonics. I also record in real time the sound of the bass that becomes a corpus for the player, used somehow like an intelligent looper. During the performance I modify the activity of Players at times between reactive and continuous playing, change probability, continuity and internal and external influences according to the scenarios and change their reference influencers (and what to listen from them).

For the modular voices I use a sub-patch for midi to cv conversion sending cvs through an Expert Sleepers module.

The concept wants to achieve a certain level of freedom and of unexpectedness in the performance of my improvisation with agents. I can of course control the parameters through the midi controllers (a hands-on and a foot controller) and create the framework for the improvised solo set but I (and the listener hopefully) can also enjoy playing without knowing what the agent will be playing, having a dialogue with it and taking the music in a direction or another.

Ferdinando Romano is a double bass player, composer and improviser active mainly in the contemporary and avant-garde jazz scene. In addition to double bass he has a great passion for modular synthesizers and electronic music, and he is carrying out PhD studies at the Department of Electronic Music of the Como Conservatory investigating the possibilities of integrating Artificial Intelligence in improvisational practice in collaboration with some important European realities.

In Top Jazz 2023, the critics’ referendum held by the historic magazine Musica Jazz, he won important awards, placing second in the Italian Musician of the Year category. His album Invisible Painters ranked among the Italian Albums of the Year and among the Italian Ensembles of the Year.
With his debut album Totem feat. Ralph Alessi, Romano had won numerous awards such as first place as “Best New Italian Talent 2020” in Musica Jazz magazine’s annual Top Jazz, the SIAE 2021 Award and was one of the winners of the Nuova Generazione Jazz program.

He has received wide international acclaim from leading magazines and journals. He has been described as “a poetic bassist, an inspired composer and an intriguing arranger” (T. Conrad, Stereophile), “A brilliant record, an expression of clear talent” (Musica Jazz).

Ferdinando performs extensively live and in the studio, both as leader and sideman, collaborating with such musicians as Ralph Alessi, Enrico Rava, Robin Eubanks, Benny Golson, Alexander Hawkins, Glenn Ferris, Logan Richardson, Elias Stemeseder, Jerome Sabbagh, Yuhan Su, Ben Van Gelder, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Tom Ollendorff, Marc Michel, Kirke Karja, Veli Kujala, Camila Nebbia..
He is a member of bands such as Alexander Hawkins Dialect Quintet (with Alexander Hawkins, Camila Nebbia, Giacomo Zanus, and Francesca Remigi) and Nazareno Caputo’s trio Phylum, honored in 2021 by the New York City Jazz Record as one of the best debuts of the year

Our artistic research is conducted in a telematic environment, with Mikhail based in France and Cássia Carrascoza in Brazil. This geographic separation enables us to explore sonic and visual elements specific to virtual space. The project investigates key concepts in telematics, such as sound space and the creation of virtual stage elements, while experimenting with binaural formats (SPAT), real-time electronic synthesis, and telematic interaction mediated by AI and machine learning tools like SOMAX2. We also work with computer agents to construct musical narratives in real time.

Central to our creative process are collaborative listening, emotional response, and improvisation. In adapting our telematic performances for in-person settings, we preserve their poetic structure. Our work is inspired by Tibetan/Bön cosmology, which views the universe as composed of five elements—space, air, fire, water, and earth—each shaping the material and phenomenal worlds. We select musical and visual materials to reflectively engage with these elements.

Performances unfold as improvisations within a pre-structured poetic-musical narrative, incorporating excerpts of canonical works, original recordings, flute, percussion, voice, and environmental soundscapes. The video component includes two layers: one generated by AI, the other featuring Brazilian landscapes that evoke the five elements. The narrative bridges virtual and natural realms through imagery of Amazonian Indigenous peoples, the Rio Negro, the boto cor-de-rosa, and central Brazilian landscapes. The final section expands into AI-generated landscapes, merging reality with imaginative constructs. We employ a system developed by Guilherme Zanchetta using TouchDesigner software, specifically designed for audiovisual performance. This system enables real-time control over video transitions, responding dynamically to sensory stimuli. It avoids repetitive sequencing and enhances visual variation in accordance with the performer’s actions.

Cássia Carrascoza – Flute improvising
Mikhail Malt – Performance improvising, Somax2, Spat
Excerpts employed in Somax2 (corpus)
Pauline Oliveros – Sound Patterns (1961)
Different Breathing Patterns, Recorded at IRCAM
Mario Davidovsky – Synchronism No. 1 (1962) for flute and pre-recorded electronic sounds.
Bülent Arel – Electronic Music No. 1 (1962)
Flute Whistletones, Recordings
György Ligeti – Glissandi (1957)
BowHeadWale Recordings from “Watkins Collection of Marine Mammal Sound Recordings, Australia”
Flute Pizzicato, Staccato, and Other Articulations, Recordings
Nana Vasconcelos, Berimbau Performance, Africadeus (1973)

Cássia Carrascoza is a Brazilian flutist, educator, and researcher with an international career in classical music and networked arts. She is a professor in the Department of Music at the University of São Paulo (USP), where she actively promotes Brazilian contemporary music and explores the integration of technology into musical performance. From 1999 to 2018, she served as principal flutist of the São Paulo Municipal Theater Symphony Orchestra. Her performance career has included appearances in countries such as Hungary, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Belgium, the United States, Argentina, and China. Carrascoza’s current academic and artistic work centers on collaborative composition, telematic audiovisual performance, and improvisation involving electronic media and artificial intelligence. She currently serves as Director of the USP Symphony Orchestra (OSUSP).

Mikhail Malt – With a dual scientific and musical background in engineering, composition and conducting, Mikhail Malt began his musical career in Brazil as a flautist and conductor. He is the author of a thesis in musicology, at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, on the use of mathematical models in computer-assisted composition, as well as an HDR (Habilitation à diriger des recherches). He was an associate professor at the Sorbonne Paris IV from 2006 to 2012, and a lecturer in computer music at the pedagogical department of Ircam, Paris-France until 2021. He is currently composer in research in the Musical Representations team at Ircam and a research associate at iReMus-Sorbonne in Paris. Furthermore, he pursues his creative and research activities on generative music, creative systems, the epistemology of representation and different listening strategies.

This piece is a meditation on a composition by Thelonious Monk called “Introspection.” It involves three improvisors: Somax2 (the improvising application developed at IRCAM), Dogstar (a generative machine made by Miles Okazaki), and Okazaki himself on guitar. All three improvisors are creating and reacting spontaneously to each other’s output. The source material for the performance is drawn from the original Monk composition, manipulated and recombined in a variety of ways.

Miles Okazaki is a NYC-based guitarist originally from Port Townsend, a small seaside town in Washington State. His approach to the guitar is described by the New York Times as “utterly contemporary, free from the expectations of what it means to play a guitar in a group setting — not just in jazz, but any kind.” His sideman experience over the last two decades covers a broad spectrum, from standards to experimental music (Kenny Barron, John Zorn, Steve Coleman, Stanley Turrentine, Henry Threadgill, Dan Weiss, Matt Mitchell, Jonathan Finlayson, Anthony Tidd, Jane Monheit, Amir ElSaffar, Darcy James Argue, and many others). He has released ten albums of original compositions over the last 12 years on the Sunnyside, Pi, and Cygnus labels. In 2018 Okazaki received wide critical acclaim for his six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, an unprecedented project that Nate Chinen called “the six-string equivalent of a free solo climb up El Capitan.” That year, Okazaki was voted the #1 rising star guitarist in the Downbeat Magazine critic’s poll. Other projects include a longstanding duo with drummer Dan Weiss, a duo with percussionist Rajna Swaminathan, and a published book, Fundamentals of Guitar, with Mel Bay. He taught guitar and rhythmic theory at the University of Michigan from 2013-22, joined the faculty at Princeton University in 2021, and holds degrees from Harvard University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School.

Juan Harald Bode (1909–1987) was a seminal figure in the history of electronic and computer music, whose work laid foundational principles for voltage-controlled synthesis and modular design. Trained in physics and mathematics, Bode began designing electronic instruments in 1935, including the innovative Warbo-Formant Organ and later the Melodium, both precursors to fully electronic sound generation.

After WWII, he introduced the Melochord, one of the earliest post-war electronic instruments, which was later installed at the Studio für Elektronische Musik in Cologne. In 1954, Bode emigrated to the U.S., joining the Estey Organ Company, where he helped design advanced electronic organs and explored cost-effective mass production techniques.

Bode’s most influential contribution came in 1960 with his Audio System Synthesizer, the first modular synthesizer to implement control voltage—an approach that shaped the development of modern synthesis. This work directly inspired figures like Bob Moog and Don Buchla. Bode also developed core audio processors such as the ring modulator, frequency shifter, and vocoder, many of which remain essential tools in electronic and computer music.

A relentless innovator, Bode later embraced digital computing, developing hardware and software on early home computers. His legacy endures in the architecture of sound synthesis and the ethos of exploratory design.

Dynamic itineraries, was composed in 2024. The aim of the work is to develop the timbric and spatial dimension through innovation. To do this, trajectories are deployed in space with textural concepts. The spatiality of sound will be considered based on the analytical approach proposed by Gary Kendall (2009). Curiosity about the transformation of sound motivated the timbric treatment of this work. This approach allows the interpretation and study of the transformation of sound material and the disturbance of spatial schemes. 

The acoustic parameters -physical and perceptual-, regardless of a specific architectural space, will allow to be used as a source of compositional structure generation. The sound creation of the work for electronic sounds will contemplate the “play” between the spatial location of the sound, the textural space and the interior field of the architectural structure through acoustics. The relationship between conceptual sources and acoustic environment analyzed based on cognitive content-container schemes (Kendall 2009): interplay forms/resources with perceptual grouping from the disruption between container-content schemes. 

The organization of the speech will be based on the holophonic musical texture, developed by Panayiotis Kokoras. The composer expresses that he considers it as the next stage of evolution of the musical texture, continuing with the paradigms of monophony, polyphony and homophony. He thus also clarifies that the holophonic musical texture is not related to holophony as an acoustic reference to holography. He explains that the listener is focused on the synthesis of sound currents in simultaneous layers and their morphopoiesis over time. Panayiotis Kokoras with the concept of morphopoiesis refers to instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music that focuses his interest on the internal and external attributes of sound through time. It alludes to a general procedure for structuring musical form and is mainly related to timbre. He details that morphopoiesis provides a principle whose objective is to identify and clarify a general procedure that provides an explanation of the relationship between content and form (Kokoras 2005).

Argentine composer graduated from the Conservatory of Music “Manuel de Falla”. Degree in Electroacoustic Composition by the National University of Quilmes (UNQ) in Argentina. Participates in the research program “Temporal Systems and Spatial Synthesis at Sound Art” (UNQ). Ph.D Candidate in Music: Composition (Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina – UCA). The topic of study is: The Spatial Dimension of Music for Mixed Media and Architectural Acoustics. 

She has composed works for solo instruments, ensembles, orchestra, chamber choir, electroacoustic and mixed media works. Her works are released by renowned performers and presented in prestigious venues in Argentina in major concert series. Her work “Modos en decantación” was selected to participate in the workshop for composers conducted in 2013 by the Arditti Quartet (UNQ). Her work “Espacio Onírico”, composed by the commission of the Swiss duo UMS ‘n JIP to be part of The Latino America Projet (2019), was premiered and performed in Switzerland in the cities of Bern, Basel, Brig-Glis and Zürich. 

Her works have been selected to participate in international festivals: 41st International Computer Music Conference (USA) in 2015, L’Acusmonium AUDIOR (Italy) in 2015 and 2017, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2016, 2017 and 2018 (USA), MUSLAB (Mexico, England and France ) in 2016 and 2018, Bernaola Festival XIV Edition, AKUSMA (Spain) in 2017, Delian Academy for New Music (Grecia) in 2018 and 2024, 43rd International Computer Music Conference (Daegu, South Korea) in 2018, Mixtur 2019, 2021 and 2022 (Spain), ACMC 2019 (Australia), Impuls, 13th international Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music (Graz – Austria) in 2023, 50th International Computer Music Conference (Seul, South Korea) in 2024, Internationales Digitalkunst Festival (Stuttgart- Germany) in 2024 and Curs Internacional de Composició Barcelona Modern (Barcelona – Spain) in 2025, among others.

The work presents itself as an allegory of the concept of conflict, understood in its most intimate sense. A descent into the abyss of discord, where acoustic entities battle for supremacy. There is no redemption, only blind fury, untamed and unyielding, that moves toward the destruction of the other. What remains is pure silence. 

The entire composition employs concrete samples of percussion, metal objects, and sine wave frequencies. Signal processing techniques include time-stretching and granular synthesis. The concrete samples processed with granular synthesis were broken down into tiny fragments through manual editing and then reassembled with a new temporal order through a kind of micro-editing.

Nicola Fumo Frattegiani is an electroacoustic and audio-visual composer living in Perugia, Italy. His works have been presented at various national and international festivals, among the most important and prestigious of electroacoustic music and experimental arts. 

Author and performer, his research deals with electroacoustic music, sound for images, video, art exhibitions and compositions for theatrical performances. 

He was Subject Expert in “Electroacoustic” and “Computer Music” at the Conservatory of Music of Perugia. He held the chair of Electroacoustic Music Composition at the Conservatory of Music in Messina and he was professor of Sound design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata. 

He is currently professor of Audio & Mixing and Sound Space Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia and holds the chair of Electroacoustic Music Composition at the Conservatory of Music in Palermo.

Spectre is an abstract work which is horror inspired. It is loosely inspired by the works of Edgar Varese. Also, I was influenced by the works of H.P.Lovecraft, weird horror short stories

Nate Sassoon is a composer/producer/pianist/harpsichordist from New York City. Classically trained pianist, Nate has been composing/producing electronic music since 2015, starting in high school. Albums released: Miscellaneous Catalog, Volume 1 and 2, (2023), Cold Shadows and Warm Rays (2020), Umba (2020), Taste The Machines (2020), Conductive (2019), What floor am I on (2018), multiple singles. Total of over 300 compositions. Concert music written for Organ, Piano, Violin, Trumpet, Trombone, sextet. Genres: neo classical, modern, neo baroque, pop, rock. EDM, Electro acoustic works performed at JSoM, 2023, 2024, 2025. Also, harpsichordist, basso continuo with Baroque Orchestra, solo recitals as a pianist in New York, Russia, Mexico, UK and Jamaica. Tours in France and Russia Jacobs School of Music, MM Composition, MM Computer Music Composition, MM Historical Performance in Fortepiano. (Summer 2025 University of Oxford, B.A. (Hon) Music (2021) Phillips Exeter Academy, High school diploma (2018).

Self-censorship is a multimedia performance representing disenfranchised and oppressed voices. It combines a loosely improvised violin performance with live processing and fixed media featuring a bamboo flute. The live violin music interacts with the visual elements in real-time. This piece depicts the push to silence minorities, women, and other marginalized groups. While there is a strong desire to speak up, one pulls back due to fear, force, and the possibility of retribution and negative consequences. Overall, this piece depicts the tyranny and frustration that stem from having to exercise self-censorship while empowering underrepresented and powerless groups to speak up.

Cecilia Suhr is an award-winning intermedia artist, researcher, and multi-instrumentalist (violin, cello, voice, piano, bamboo flute). Her interdisciplinary work spans music, visual art, interactive media, and academic research. Her accolades include the Pauline Oliveros Award from the IAWM, a MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Grant, an Honorable Mention from the American Prize, and medals from the Cambridge Music Competition and the Global Music Awards, among others. Her music has been showcased internationally at leading festivals and conferences such as ICMC, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, Mise-En Music Festival, New Music on the Bayou, Performing Media Art Festival, Hot Air Music Festival, Splice Festival, Mantis Festival, TENOR, EMM, SCI, BEAST Feast, MoXsonic, and more. She is also the author of Social Media and Music (Peter Lang, 2012) and Evaluation and Credentialing in Digital Music Communities (MIT Press, 2014). She currently serves as a full professor in the Department of Humanities and Creative Arts at Miami University Regionals.

This work was inspired by impressions of the natural landscape of the Lake District, closely associated with the English poet William Wordsworth. The text is drawn from stanzas III, IV, and V of The Thorn (1798), a poem by the same poet. 

Both the premiere and revised premiere took place in Japan, where neither the composer nor the audience was a native speaker of English. Therefore, the piece was composed by focusing on the phonetic qualities of the text—particularly as foreign speech whose direct meaning is not immediately accessible—and by treating these phonetic sounds as musical elements, which were processed and developed as sonic material. 

For this performance, however, the work will be presented to an audience largely composed of native English speakers. The composer hopes that this context will allow for a deeper appreciation of the piece, including its textual meaning. 

The revised premiere (2019) took place on a Noh stage and featured a more representational approach: it included scenes where the singer walked along the hashigakari, the bridgeway leading from the mirror room to the main stage, accompanied by projected images of the Lake District. In contrast, the current version revised for the ICMC 2025 is shorter and closer to the original premiere, with a greater focus on the music itself. 

The sound processing techniques employed include primarily granular synthesis and FM synthesis. A pseudo-echo effect was also developed. This function generates synthesized timbres that follow the magnitude of the singer’s voice in real time, using FM synthesis to create echo-like textures that repeat and reflect the original soprano voice. In this broader sense, the function could also be considered an example of audio mosaicing. Max and Audacity are used as digital tools. Below are the texts of stanzas III to V referred to in the piece.

The Thorn 

III 

High on a mountain’s highest ridge, 

Where oft the stormy winter gale 

Cuts like a scythe, while through the clouds 

It sweeps from vale to vale; 

Not five yards from the mountain-path, 

This thorn you on your left espy; 

And to the left, three yards beyond, 

You see a little muddy pond 

Of water, never dry; 

I’ve measured it from side to side: 

’Tis three feet long, and two feet wide. 

IV 

And close beside this aged thorn, 

There is a fresh and lovely sight, 

A beauteous heap, a hill of moss, 

Just half a foot in height. 

All lovely colours there you see, 

All colours that were ever seen, 

And mossy network too is there, 

As if by hand of lady fair 

The work had woven been, 

And cups, the darlings of the eye 

So deep is their vermilion dye. 

V 

Ah me! 

What a lovely tints are there! 

Of olive-green and scarlet bright, 

In spikes, in branches, and in stars, Green, red, and dpearly white, 

This heap of earth o’ergrown with moss 

Which close beside the thorn you see, 

So fresh in all its beauteous dyes, 

Is like an infant’s grave in size 

As like as like can be: 

But never, never any where, 

An infant’s grave was half so fair..

Naotoshi Osaka received his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Waseda University in 1978. He worked at the Electrical Communication Laboratories of NTT in Tokyo, Japan, from 1978 to 2003, and earned his Doctor of Engineering degree in 1994. His research has focused on audio effect technology. He has studied sound morphing and sound hybridization, and his recent interest is in audio mosaicing, which expresses environmental sounds in terms of instrumental sounds. Moreover, his interests have expanded to include AI-based music composition using deep learning. Since 1990, he has focused mainly on composing computer music and developing related sound synthesis technologies. 

His compositional works include Sound Textile for piano and computer (1998), Shizuku no Kuzushi for violin, computer, and orchestra (1999), and Piano Concerto No. 2 (2021) and No. 3 (2022). He has participated in the ICMC in 1993, 2003, 2008, and 2024, and in the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF) in 2016, 2017, and 2019. 

He is currently Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Denki University. He served as the Asia/Oceania Regional Director of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) from 2002 to 2009, and was President of the Japanese Society of Sonic Arts (JSSA) from 2009 to 2018.

This piece is a transformation of a duo for flute and piano named “El reino del rêve” , a pun mixing spanish and French that plays with the name of a song “The Kingdom of the Upside Down” and the “The Kingdom of dreams” 

The continuous transformation of a set of gestures, rewritten again and again obsessively and projected in the composition of the tape part, that avoids any sampled sound, were part of a process in which the polarities between sound forms seemed to be irreductible. 

The piece is torn in one side by the exploration of the instrumental energetic modalities, in the other side the search for a goal oriented syntax and the need of the use harmonic to organize the musical space. 

Esquisse-o-phrenia was premiered in Buenos Aires by Alkünoir duo and played around the world and recorded by Proyecto Laberinto ( Andrea Escobar and Rodrigo Evangelista) for Elektramusic Label.

Buenos Aires (1959) Studied composition with Francisco Kröpfl in Buenos Aires and with Marcelle Deschênes at Université de Montreal. His music has been programmed in Festivals and concerts around the world such L´espace du son (Bruxelles) , Korea World Music Days, Seoul Computer Music Festival, (Korea), Aspekte (Austria), Festival de Bourges (France), Festival de Música Contemporánea de Caracas , (Venezuela), Festival Musica Nova (Brazil), Multiphonies, Radio France, Paris , Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón, Festival Internacional de Teatro de Buenos Aires , ICMC Utrecht among many others 

He received comissions and /or worked in artist residencies at GRM(Paris, France) , Musiques & Recherches (Ohain, Bélgium) Phonos (Barcelona, Spain) , CCRMA (Stanford, U.S.) , LIEM(Madrid, Spain). 

His works have been played by renowned musicians like Ensamble Gest (u)alt , James Baker, Eduardo Moguillansky , Alejo Pérez Pouilleux ,Edelton Gloeden, Baiba Oshina , Josetxo Silguero, Cuarteto Untref, Diego Castro Magas , Shao Wei Chu , Reinhold Westerheide, Andrea Escobar, Juliana Moreno, Natalia Cappa among many others. 

He has been awarded the First Prize at Buenos Aires City Composition Contest , 2nd Prize at the Xicoatl International Composition Contest (Salzbourg, 2009), also has been awarded Honorable mentions at Xicoatl International Composition Contest (Salzbourg, 2005), Pierre Schaeffer International Competition (Pescara, 2001) , Métamorphoses d´Orphée International Competition (Ohain,2000) ACREQ International Composition for audioclip,(Québéc,1993), Finalist at Musica Nova International Contest (2000,2009,2010) Bourges International Contest (1999,2003,2005), Luigi Russollo International Contest (1995). 

His music is published by BabelScores and Luscinia Discos (Spain). He´s currently teaching Musical semiotics at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero and electroacoustic composition at Conservatorio Alberto Ginastera.

I am never quite sure what to think when listeners describe my music using the term ‘filmic’. Are they referring to a certain sense of space that is, perhaps, similar in both electroacoustic music and film..? Or perhaps it is a sense of dramaturgy or narrative that they find similar..? I am not sure. But whatever the case, my very first piece was described as ‘filmic’, and such comparisons continue to this day. Between Pictures is the first of my pieces that is intentionally filmic. It was my attempt to think through filmic connections in my music, and electroacoustic music more generally. It was also an opportunity for me to explore certain sounds that I previously recorded and composed for film but, sadly, never used.

Adam Stanović composes music with recorded sound. In recent years, his music has drawn from both studio and location recordings, using both digital and analogue technologies. Adam’s music follows in the traditions of musique concrète, in the sense that it involves the direct (physical) manipulation of sound in ways that have been compared to the plastic arts, such as sculpture, painting, and pottery. His music always employs a fixed medium, but is sometimes accompanied by instruments, electronics, film, and animation. To date, he has won prizes, residencies, and mentions at competitions around the world, including: Prix CIME (France); IMEB (France); Metamophoses (Belgium); Destellos (Argentina); Contemporanea (Italy); Computer Space (Bulgaria); Ise-Shima (Japan); SYNC (Russia); Musica Viva (Portugal); Musica Nova (Czech Republic); Ars Electronica Forum Wallis (Switzerland); KEAR (USA); MusicAcoustica (China); Prix Russolo (France), Red Jasper Award (USA); Uljus (Serbia). Many of his pieces have been composed in studios around the world, including those of the IMEB (France); Musiques & Recherches (Belgium); VICC (Sweden); EMS (Sweden); Leeds College of Music (UK); CMMAS (Mexico); Holst House (UK); Mise-En_Place Bushwick (USA); Bowling Green State University (USA); Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia); and GRM (France). 

Adam is Director of Sound and Music at the University of the Arts, London, and co-Director of the British ElectroAcoustic Network. For more information, visit: www.adamstanovic.com

Both the words and the music are fragmented into small pieces and put back together to form new, coherent phrases. Through this process, a new expressive potential is pursued.

Deniz Aslan is a composer and a bassoonist specializing in new music. He was born in 1997 in Ankara, Turkey. Classically trained in bassoon for ten years, he received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in composition from Bilkent University under the supervision of Tolga Yayalar. As of 2025, he is a DMA student and an Assistant Instructor at the University of Texas at Austin and continuing his studies under the supervision of Januibe Tejera. 

Deniz has worked with ensembles such as Arditti Quartet, Black Pencil, Yurodny Ensemble, Collegium Novum, HANATSUmiroir, United Instruments of Lucilin, Splinter Reeds, Oerknal, MotoContrario, Reverberation Percussion, Anatolian Wind Quintet, Hezarfen Ensemble, and his music has been performed in Turkey, United States, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, and Luxembourg. 

Deniz was a finalist in the 2023 Prix CIME Electronic Music Competition and the 2021 Balkan Composer Competition in Prishtina.

Con Anima is a musical work composed for violin and live electronics. From the perspective of structural design, the piece aims to explore and experiment with the conflicts and instability between rhythm, repetition, musical transformation, and visual illusions. It involves real-time pitch transformation and layering of sound parts based on signals captured by the microphone. The deeper objective is to seamlessly integrate the acoustic and electronic components, making them inseparable and fully unified. While the title Con Anima may at first recall the familiar musical expression marking “with lively energy” in this work it draws more explicitly from the original Italian meaning—”with soul.” This notion is reflected not only in the emotional character of the music but also in the profound interaction between the performer and the responsive electronic system. The piece in the end concludes with a quote from German philosopher Martin Heidegger — “Der Tod ist die Möglichkeit der schlechthinnigen Unmöglichkeit des Daseins.”

Piao Yisong is a composer specializing in electro-acoustic and instrumental music based in Seoul, Korea. He is the researcher at the Center for Research in Electro-Acoustic Music and Audio (CREAMA) ,the founder of Huintokki,(an independent music art group). 

His works have been showcased at prestigious events like the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2023，China；ICMC 2024 Korea) in China and Korea, highlighting his innovative approach to integrating real-time computer processing with traditional instruments. 

His individual style and artistic approach have been deeply influenced by Western Baroque, early Classical music, late European music, and American modern music spanning the period 1940-1990. His recent focus is on exploring microtonality and the possibilities of algorithmic approaches in composition.

Florilegium – a collection of flowers. This piece explores some of my interests regarding combining a solo instrument with live computer interaction to create a slowly-evolving tapestry of sound. The piece takes the idea of bariolage between violin strings as a starting point, and uses both pitch-tracking and tempo detection to recognize a series of predetermined motivic “cues” to advance the live sound processing non-linearly through a series of “events” and to create a tight fusion of the live violin and its real-time transposed sound. The simple video projection is a direct visual representation of the parameters used to create of the transposed violin sounds, which use cyclic patterns of different lengths inspired by the ubiquitous isorhythmic techniques found in medieval music. This work was made possible through the generous support of Hanyang University’s Performance Exhibition Support Project (Grant No. 202400000001682).

Richard Dudas holds degrees in Music Composition from The Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, and from The University of California, Berkeley. He additionally studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary and the National Regional Conservatory of Nice, France. In addition to composing music for acoustic instruments, he has been actively involved with music technology since the late 1980s. As a computer musician, he has taught courses at IRCAM, and developed musical tools for Cycling ’74. Since 2007 he has been teaching music composition and computer music at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea.

What layers of meaning remain when the transparency of a sound recording is intentionally stripped away? Skin and Siren poses a response to this question in its treatment of recordings from percussionist Ingar Zach and field recordings made in Oslo in the Spring of 2022. The work presents dreamlike passages alternating between the corporeal residue of performance (Zach) and a fractured city soundscape. Filtered and pitch-shifted resonances from the snare drum and timpani create a harmonic frame for much of the work in addition to resonances extracted from bells ringing at Oslo City Hall. Skin and Siren is about finding beauty in absolute chaos, and losing yourself in a moment by becoming present in the transcendental meditative sense. Rather than presenting sound sources is raw states, I found that my digital transformations highlighted the ephemera of the scenes, like the tactility of small impulses and emergence of tonal shades. Between periods of being swept away by such fragmented pictures, one encounters concentrated, powerful sonic totalities of high contrast—encapsulating the way that time implodes in moments of becoming present and expands into vast spaces of mind and body.

Robert Seaback is a composer and sound artist from the US currently based in Florida. His electronic works are sonic expressions of viscerality, the hyperreal, digital stasis, and continuums between—integrating voices, instruments, soundscapes, and synthetic sources through digital techniques. He has composed or performed in different mediums including spatial audio, mixed music for ensemble, electroacoustic improvisation, and sound installation. Robert has a PhD in composition from the University of Florida and degrees in music technology from Mills College (MA) and Northeastern University (BS). He recently completed the Artistic Research Fellowship at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo, working with Natasha Barrett. His music has been presented at international events such as Ultima Festival, ICMC, NYCEMF, Sonorities, MA/IN, the ISCM World New Music Days, and many others. Robert has received awards from Música Viva Competition (First Prize, 2022), IEM & VDT 3D Audio Production Competition (Gold Award, 2021), Xenakis International Electronic Music Competition (Honorary Mention, 2019), ASCAP/SEAMUS (First Prize, 2011), University of Florida, and Mills College. Robert’s dissertation research on digital sound synthesis and posthumanism was published in the Cambridge University Press Journal Organised Sound in 2020. He was an Assistant Professor of Digital Sound Design at Dakota State University from 2019-20. He currently develops/instructs online courses in Music Production for Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design and teaches general music courses at Santa Fe College.

Embracing Emptiness delves into the profound concept of emptiness, a central tenet of Buddhism. Emptiness does not denote nothingness but signifies the interconnected and ever-changing nature of all things within their contexts. It emphasizes that nothing exists independently or in a fixed state; rather, everything is shaped by dynamic relationships. This understanding fosters flexibility and transformation, encouraging the embrace of life’s vast possibilities. Viewed this way, emptiness represents an optimistic perspective on existence, affirming the interdependence of all things. It suggests that reality is fluid, without inherent ground or essence, and that we are all interconnected in this continuous flow of being. The piece unfolds in three movements: the first for marimba, the second for vibraphone, and the third returning to marimba, weaving a tapestry of shifting musical contexts. The electronic component is created from marimba and vibraphone sounds, captured via microphones and processed in real-time with a Max patch utilizing pitch-shift, delay, and feedback algorithms. This results in a dense and evolving soundscape, constantly transforming with the live-electronic interactions. The accompanying video features imagery from California’s Death Valley National Park, evoking both the vastness of the landscape and the contemplative nature of emptiness. The work invites listeners to engage with the interconnectedness and dynamic reality it portrays.

Paulo C. Chagas is an internationally renowned composer and Professor of Composition at the University of California, Riverside. With an impressive catalog of over 200 works spanning orchestral, chamber, electroacoustic, audiovisual, multimedia, and telematic music, Chagas’ innovative approach integrates advanced technology in composition and performance. A survivor of torture by the Brazilian military, his music powerfully embodies themes of healing and resistance. Chagas studied at the University of São Paulo (Brazil), the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège (Belgium), and the Cologne Academy of Music (Germany), earning his PhD in Musicology from the Université de Liège. In the 1990s, he served as the sound director and composer-in-residence at the WDR Electronic Studio in Cologne. His works, including large-scale audiovisual and telematic music projects, highlight his commitment to technological innovation and its expressive potential in the arts. A member of the board of directors of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA), Chagas’ compositions have been widely performed at international festivals, conferences, and concerts across the United States, Europe, Asia, and beyond. These performances underscore his global influence and showcase his unique ability to blend traditional musical elements with electronic and digital innovations, pushing the boundaries of musical expression. Chagas is also an accomplished author, having published extensively, including the books Unsayable Music (2014) and Sounds from Within (2021). His work has garnered numerous international awards, including the prestigious Fulbright Research Award for his residency in Berlin (2022-23).

Become Waves is the second study in my continuing exploration of the narrativity and interactivity among physicality, space, and sound. In this work, sound becomes an imaginary, yet tangible object that is sculpted and projected into the three-dimensional space by the performer’s movement and gestures. Collectively, the concert space transforms into an alternate realm. In this work, The performer triggers, shapes, and diffuses sound in real time. Through sensors, the performer’s movement and gestures are coherently combined with sonic changes. The sensor on performer’s wrist spatializes sound following his/her hand movement, and the stationary sensor enables continuous changes of sonic parameters in the space. After composing the work, I encountered a paragraph from Amy Liptrot’s book—The Outrun—through the film adaptation by director Nora Fingscheidt, which perfectly captures the momentary sensation of fusing my body and movement with the field recordings used in the work. I would like to share it with you: “In grandiose moments, high on fresh air and freedom on the hill, I study my personal geology. My body is a continent. Forces are at work in the night. A bruxist, I grind my teeth in my sleep, like tectonic plates. When I blink the sun flickers, my breath pushes the clouds across the sky and the waves roll into the shore in time with my beating heart. Lightning strikes every time I sneeze, and when I orgasm, there’s an earthquake. The islands’ headlands rise above the sea, like my limbs in the bathtub, my freckles are famous landmarks and my tears rivers. My lovers are tectonic plates and stone cathedrals.” – Amy Liptrot, The Outrun

I am interested in the mundane sounds of everyday life and the uncanny voices of imaginary realms. My works, created for diverse media and performed at numerous venues, have been brought to life by a variety of ensembles and performers around the world, including myself. My current interests include composed theater, sound spatialization, and the physicality and narrativity of sound. I hope my works will always be driven by curiosity, intuition, and passion. You can find more info about my life and works at https://www.tianyiwangmusic.com/

Brompton & Braeswood is an acousmatic piece inspired by my personal experience living through Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The title derives from the street intersection where my wife and I were living at the time, along Brays Bayou in Houston. Central to my piece is a library of field recordings I captured at that intersection and along the bayou in the days immediately prior to Harvey making landfall. Some of these recordings were made with a Soundfield SPS-200 microphone; others were made with a matched pair of DPA miniature omni microphones clipped to the brim of a baseball cap, which allowed me to capture a quasi-binaural stereo image. In composing “Brompton & Braeswood,” I sought to present a series of vignettes of contrasting mood and representation. The piece’s opening presents the imagery and emotion of a violent storm. The storm is initially heard directly, then — after a door slams shut — from the perspective of someone taking shelter. The remainder of the piece depicts the gentle but unrelenting, oppressive rainfall that accompanied the hurricane, and there is a marked shift in the music which draws the listener inward toward a place of introspection. At the time Harvey struck Houston, I had just arrived home from the hospital to recover from a major surgery, following a long period of illness. “Brompton & Braeswood” draws on my contemporaneous thoughts and feelings: those of intense worry and gloom, but also of optimism that my health would improve. Aside from field recordings, other sound materials include noisy tones synthesized in Max/MSP, pitched wood, and piano and guitar samples. Sound was spatialized using 5th-order ambisonic encoding. The piece explores electroacoustic techniques of amplitude envelope following, filtering, and synthesis using bandpass-filtered white noise, and combines aesthetics and approaches from acousmatic, environmental soundscape, and ambient genres. “Brompton & Braeswood” was commissioned by New Music on the Bayou and premiered during their 2023 festival edition in Monroe, Louisiana. The work was awarded Second Prize in the 2024 SoundChain International Composition Competition.

TIMOTHY ROY composes music steeped in imagery and allusion, which seeks to elicit a sense of time, place, and feeling. With an output that encompasses instrumental and vocal works, electronic sound, and the intersection of these two realms, Tim endeavors to explore a broad range of mediums and contexts in which his work might be experienced. His music has been presented at such venues and events as the National Theater of Taipei, Music Biennale Zagreb, the DiMenna Center, ZKM Karlsruhe, Moores Opera House, San Francisco Tape Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Ars Electronica Festival, Sonorities Festival Belfast, Los Angeles County Arboretum, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Recent awards and honors include the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award (First Prize, 2022), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award (First Prize, 2023; Finalist, 2018), SoundChain International Composition Competition (Second Prize, 2024), Giga-Hertz Production Prize (Honorable Mention, 2022), and Prix CIME from the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (Distinction, 2023). In 2024, he received an Honorable Mention in the McKnight Composer Fellowship awards from American Composers Forum. His music has been commissioned by the American Harp Society, Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra, Musiqa Houston, and ASCAP/SEAMUS, and further supported by the I-Park Foundation and Minnesota’s Metropolitan Regional Arts Council. His music is published by Edition Peters, Albany Records, New Focus Recordings, and GIA Publications. Tim resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he is choirmaster and organist at the Church of Saint Peter Roman Catholic Community. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, as well as degrees from University of Missouri-Kansas City (MM) and Southern Methodist University (BM).

2CUBES is a live-electronic performance for double bass, modular synth and two Augmented Reality (AR) interfaces. The musicians are wearing head-mounted displays (HMDs), to interact with a virtual cube – programmed in Unity, that is placed next to their instruments. This interface allows them to manipulate the sounds of their instruments and distribute them in space with Ambisonics rendering – all realized in SuperCollider. The HMDs also capture the first-person view of both musicians and stream them to the audience using GEM in Pure Data, which enables a direct connection between the instruments’ sounds and the visuals. This new perspective creates a completely new experience for the audience, revealing the minute movements, even for the modular synth. 2CUBES is a structured improvisation that explores the possibilities of the instruments in combination with the interface and the spatial rendering system.

Henrik von Coler is a composer/performer of electronic music and researcher. From 2015-2023 he was director of the TU Studio (TU Berlin). He is now an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Music, where he is running the Lab for Interaction and Immersion (L42i). His research encompasses spatial audio, human-computer – and human-human interaction and live electronics. In his performances and compositions, he combines state of the art digital systems with analog and simple sound generators to create immersive experiences with digital to organic textures and timbres.

Hyunkyung Shin is a composer, bassist, and researcher in music technology, currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on spatial audio, sonic interaction, and multimodal interface design within immersive media, with particular emphasis on human-computer interaction and user experience in AR/VR environments. As a composer and bassist, she explores embodiment and improvisation through spatialized sound and gestural control. Her performances have been featured at international festivals and conferences including ICMC, NYCEMF, and OHBM.

Luminiferous Aether Students of scientific history will recognize that the title references a beautiful but abandoned concept in physics, eventually disproven in the late 19th and early twentieth century. “Luminiferous Aether” was the postulated medium for the propagation of light … “invoked to explain the ability of apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space…” (Wikipedia) ‘LumAe’ envelopes listeners in harmonic constructs of a primarily static nature. However, beneath this static harmonic surface, individual pitch elements undergo continual spatial shifts through the use of overlapping, nested and granulated spatial matrices. In effect, harmonies are dynamically revoiced in space. Little traditional panning is used. In its 24 channel version, individual sounds virtually appear in one speaker at a time though they may overlap in various ways as melodies sometimes surface. The music is completely derived from bowed cello tones and harmonics (except for one note and one other sound). In its final form, the piece will be performed live by a cellist/computer musician. All materials were generated and processed in real time in MaxMSP and Spat5. Output formats vary, from transaural stereo to hemispherical arrays of 64 or more loudspeakers. To be succinct, the piece is about spatially articulated harmony as complex timbre flow, riffing on wave and particle dualities, and notions of transcendence. ‘LumAe’ was premiered at the SAT dome in Montreal in 2016 and revised in 2024/25. Note: I first started thinking about spatially distributed harmonies after learning of David Wessel’s notion of Timbre Space. Perhaps this is Harmony Space. Peter Otto

Peter Otto is an expert in the language and aesthetics of music technology, and has lead hardware/software design teams in instrumentation and facilities design, systems and networking, and media R&D. Classically trained in performance and composition, he completed graduate work at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles in 1984, and continued there on faculty for several years. His vita includes long associations with Morton Subotnick and Luciano Berio (Tempo Reale), and studies and collaborations with Mel Powell and Roger Reynolds. He held faculty appointments at UCSD as Music Technology Director, and as founding Director of the Sonic Arts R&D group at UCSD’s Qualcomm Institute from 2009. He designed audio systems for leading academic laboratories (StarCave, HiperWall, KAUST’s sci-viz labs). Venue, studio and R&D lab credits include CalIT2’s Spatial Audio Lab (Spatlab) and collaborative designs for CalIT2’s Black Box and Digital Cinema Theatres, UCSD Music’s new Prebys Music Center (Experimental Theatre and others). His research has focused on auditory imaging, sensory fusion and multidimensionality for the past 15 years, and he has published or co-authored more than 25 technical papers. His performance and large venue design work has been heard in American, European and Asian venues such as Carnegie Hall, Juilliard, Los Angeles Philharmonic, SIGGRAPH, Theatre Olympics (Japan), The Holland Festival, Foundation Maecht (France), Santa Cecilia (Italy), Barbican and Royal Albert Halls (London), Ars Electronica (Austria), the Aspen Festival, and many others. In 2016 he designed the innovative and acclaimed hybrid immersive audio system for the Mass Effect 4D Theatre in the Great America theme park in Santa Clara, California.

disonancia (dissonance) traces the friction between two phrases. One is a call: “lo personal es político”—the personal is political. Born from feminist movements in the late 1960s, it reminds us that private struggles are not isolated. They are shaped by—and shape—larger systems of power. In the intimate spaces of daily life, in homes and relationships, politics takes root. The other is a warning: “la ropa sucia se lava en casa”—dirty laundry is washed at home. Common in México and Latin America, it urges silence. It keeps personal matters behind closed doors, especially those that disturb. It protects appearances, but at a cost: women’s voices are softened, struggles hidden, autonomy denied. disonancia lives in the space between these two phrases. It names the dissonance felt by gendered bodies in México—between silence and exposure, private pain and public denial. The piece is grounded in field recordings captured throughout Mexico City using a Zoom H3-VR Ambisonics microphone. These recordings were made across a range of sonic and social environments: the busy corridors of the Metro; the chants of street vendors in outdoor markets; the echoes of prayer inside historic Catholic churches; the quiet rustle of trees in ecological reserves like Los Dinamos; the stillness of early mornings in the canals of Xochimilco; the energy of Friday night gatherings in public plazas like Coyoacán; and the layered sounds of Centro Histórico, including the vibrant pedestrian avenue Francisco I. Madero. Structured as a sonic narrative, “disonancia” uses these recordings not just as texture, but as meaning. They form the foundation upon which the piece reflects on how place, sound, and gendered experience intersect. The work invites listeners into a space where the personal reverberates outward, unsettling the silence, and refusing erasure.

Natalia Quintanilla Cabrera is an electroacoustic music artist, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Detroit, Michigan. She studied composition and music theory at the Centro de Investigación y Estudios Musicales (CIEM) in Mexico City and holds an M.A. in Media Arts from the Performing Arts Technology Department at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance. In Fall 2025, she will begin her Ph.D. in Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on hybrid systems for spatial audio, creating augmented immersive environments that integrate binaural headphone listening, Ambisonics speaker arrays, and natural acoustic sound fields. Her work has been presented across Mexico and the U.S., as well as at internationally recognized festivals such as Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, and Festival IZIS in Koper, Slovenia. She has also participated in conferences and summits including the 40.4 Festival at the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Gloucestershire, and the University of Michigan. She was commissioned by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth as part of The Mexican Repertoire Initiative, and her wind ensemble works from this project are published by The Valley Winds in Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts. Natalia’s artistic practice is closely tied to social narratives, particularly around gender violence. She was the sound designer for Ni Une Más, a multidisciplinary production that brings together music, theater, and dance to share the stories of survivors and celebrate their agency. Her thesis extended this work, focusing on gender violence in Mexico through immersive compositions that use 3D audio and a hybrid audio diffusion system (HADS). She performs under the solo project Nati Bu, blending electronics with Latin American music. She plays piano and accordion, sings, and integrates live electronics and sensor-based technology into her performances.

Sympoiesis Pauline Oliveros reported on recent advances in the “Expanded Instrument System,” or EIS, at the 1991 ICMC in Montreal. In their paper, co-authored with Panaiotis, the term EIS referred back to Oliveros’ studio improvisations produced with tape-delay during the 1960s, and looked forward to the emerging possibilities for distributed algorithmic control of time delays. Oliveros had returned in the 1980s to delay processing in works such as Roots of the Moment and Crone Music, and then, in 1990 at the Banff Centre, ventured into computer-control of sound and light in an ensemble sonic meditation called The Lightning Box. Within a decade, the EIS was revamped as a MAX/MSP patch, and Oliveros characterized the system as a multi-modal “time machine” in which present, past, and future occur “simultaneously with transformations.” Oliveros continued to work on EIS till her passing in 2016, branching into improvisational agents, inter-media systems, and instrument design across abilities. Oliveros’ vision for EIS enlarged with its technical capacities: “I fully expect EIS to become more and more intelligent and self-determining so that someday, it will be able to make music that no human could dream of making. When that future border is crossed – when EIS is no longer an extension of my being, but half of a reciprocal merger of humanity and computer — my music will be a new birth cry from and of post-humanity.” The final version of EIS has four modules, each with its own way of modulating time delayed sounds. One emulates the 1980s Lexicon PCM 42, noted for its smooth pitch modulations. A second has a much longer delay buffer – up to 100 seconds – with control functions that vary the rate and depth of LFO modulation. The third module has a pair of 20 delay lines allowing for individual algorithmic control of each delay – allowing for up to 40 voices with discrete modulators along various scales of indeterminacy and temporal density. A fourth module renders output through ambisonic panners with assignable geometric shapes, enabling what Oliveros liked to refer to as spatial progressions: “[Listeners will] experience the relationship of moving in space in relation to sounds moving in the same space while the space itself is changing.” This performance showcases the EIS as a co-creative improvising agent in a duet performance. The title, Sympoiesis, means “making with,” and following its usage by Donna Haraway, the term befits the kind of “art-science worlding” Oliveros was fabulating in the Expanded Instrument System. Century plays a free bass accordion, following Oliveros’ re-conception of the instrument as a stereophonic musical source producing long continuous sound with irregular envelopes and prominent combination tones. Layton’s 17-string bass guitar was custom-built and is played in the manner of a Pythagorean lyre, capable of unusual harmonic and resonant effects. The EIS used with permission of the Pauline Oliveros Trust and Ministry of Maåt.

Michael Century, pianist, accordionist, and cultural theorist, is Professor of New Media and Music in the Arts Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Long associated with The Banff Centre for the Arts, he directed the Centre’s Inter-arts program between 1979-1988 and was founding director Centre’s Media Arts Division 1988-92. During the 1990s, he worked as program director for cultural research at the Montréal Centre d’innovation en technologies de l’information, and as senior policy advisor for art and new technology to the federal Department of Canadian Heritage. Century authored the study Pathways to Innovation in Digital Culture for the Rockefeller Foundation, and was panelist and co-author for the U.S. National Academy of Science 2003 report on information technologies and creative practices, Beyond Productivity. His monograph on Canadian innovation in new media, Northern Sparks, was published by The MIT Press in 2022. His piano, accordion, and electronic music performances and compositions have been programmed in festivals and concert series throughout North America and Europe.

Zach Layton is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, curator, and educator working collaboratively across genres and disciplines. He is a practitioner of a rare and unusual instrument, the 17-string bass, and has composed orchestral music for the Cleveland Chamber Symphony and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn, original soundtracks for filmmakers and live scores for choreographers. He has performed and exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, PS1, the Kitchen, Ostrava Days, Transmediale Berlin, and many other venues in New York and internationally. He has worked with a diverse range of artists and musicians over the years including Vito Acconci, Bradley Eros, Bobby Previte, Henry Fraser, Pauline Oliveros, Ben Vida, Tony Conrad, Michael Century, Bradford Reed, Victoria Keddie, Tristan Perich, Elliott Sharp, Joshua White, David Grubbs, Phyllis Chen, Luke Dubois, Peggy Ahwesh, Bradford Reed, Alex Waterman, Lea Bertucci and many more. A recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts music/sound award, and a MacDowell Fellowship, Zach is currently Associate Professor of music production and director of the MFA program in creative music technology at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He earned his PhD in Electronic Arts from RPI in 2017.

La Bottega del Suono versione 2 During the extraordinary blossoming of painting and sculpture in the Italian Renaissance, an artist would often establish his workshop (Bottega) where not only were his works created, but where there were apprentices to work with and learn from the master. It was, of course, also a “boutique” where patrons came to purchase or commission works, but the primary function of a Bottega was a sort of workshop-school-production establishment. La Bottega del Suono (roughly, The Sound Workshop) is inspired by this idea of a workshop ambience where concentrated artistic endeavor is rich with variety and the possibilities of building new realizations out of the immediate past. The piece is highly sectional with a great deal of attention paid to integrating many kinds of timbres, gestures, levels of energy, time manipulations and especially the spatialization of sound in a multi-channel environment: the sort of environment one might encounter in a workshop dedicated to the musical art.

A pioneer in the field of computer music, James Dashow served as the first vice president of the ICMA. He was one of the founders of the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale at the University of Padova, where he composed the first works of computer music in Italy; he has taught at MIT, Princeton University, the Centro para la Difusion di Musica Contemporanea in Madrid and the Musica Viva Festival in Lisbon; he was invited by the Conservatorio di Musica Benedetto Marcello in Venezia to teach an intensive series of workshop/masterclasses in digital sound synthesis techniques applied in particular to compositional practices, and to various aspects of the spatialization of sound. Dashow has had commissions, awards and grants from the Bourges International Festival of Experimental Music, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Linz Ars Electronica Festival, the Fromm Foundation, the Biennale di Venezia, the USA National Endowment for the Arts, RAI (Italian National Radio), the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Rockefeller Foundation, Il Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte (Montepulciano, Italy), the Koussevitzky Foundation, Prague Musica Nova, and the Harvard Musical Association of Boston. In 2000, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Magistere at the 30th Festival International de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques in Bourges. In 2011, Dashow was presented with the distinguished career award “Il CEMAT per la Musica” from the Federazione CEMAT (Roma) for his outstanding contributions to electronic music. He was composer in residence at the 12th Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, and he continues to lecture and conduct master-classes extensively in the U.S. and Europe. He is the author of the MUSIC30 language for digital sound synthesis, and the Dyad System, a compositional method featuring techniques for developing pitch structures and integrating them in inharmonic electronic sounds.

Questions and Echoes This is a 3D music piece, which uses prepared piano and other sound materials, combined with panning algorithm and psychoacoustic parameter control to achieve the construction of a dynamic immersive sound field. At the same time, the end-to-end AIGC audio model developed by the Central Conservatory of Music is used to generate highly creative sounds. It is performed by the Laptop Orchestra (ZYLork) using Digital Score.

Li Yunpeng holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), where he studied under Prof. Kenneth Fields and Prof. Li Xiaobing. Currently serving as Associate Professor in the Composition Department at Wuhan Conservatory of Music, his research-creation intersects composition and human-AI collaborative composition workflows. From 2017, His works have been selected for presentation at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) on multiple occasions and have received international performances.

The Creator’s Choice The creation of this work utilizes AI technology based on the Diffusion Model(Stable Audio), exploring collaborative creation between humans and artificial intelligence. In this process, humans primarily define the developmental progression and objectives of the work, as well as select and process audio materials. The AI learns from both human-created audio and its own generated audio to produce new audio samples for human selection and implementation. Communication between humans and AI occurs primarily through two channels: target audio references and natural language instructions. The original audio sources include Kalimba, Bell, and Pad-type sounds. Conventional creative methods beyond AI implementation involve audio editing techniques and effects processing.

Li Yunpeng holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), where he studied under Prof. Kenneth Fields and Prof. Li Xiaobing. Currently serving as Associate Professor in the Composition Department at Wuhan Conservatory of Music, his research-creation intersects composition and human-AI collaborative composition workflows. His works have been selected for presentation at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) on multiple occasions and have received international performances.

Fake Bond is a musical tale of illusion, falsehood, and pretense that poison human relationships. The track explores themes of insincere intentions and artificial bonds, exposing a toxic dependence between what is real and what is fabricated. It’s a story of manipulation, of feigned closeness that is, in reality, nothing more than cold calculation, and of how easily the line between authenticity and illusion can blur. The sonic structure is built on the confrontation of two voices – a synthetic one, generated by AI, and a real human recording. Their dialogue is not just an exchange of words but a clash between two worlds: artificial manipulation and emotional reality. The AI voice tempts, seduces, and makes promises, yet at the same time, it controls and distorts reality. The human voice, initially submissive, slowly begins to recognize the trap it has fallen into. As the track progresses, the tension between them escalates, the sounds become increasingly distorted, and the boundary between truth and deception starts to dissolve. The collision of synthetic and organic sound creates an unsettling atmosphere – not just a contrast between two sonic textures but a symbolic struggle for dominance.

My name is Justyna Tobera, and I am a composer and performer based in Poznań, Poland. My work revolves around the exploration of instrumental sound—its resonance, materiality, and the ways it can be extended through unconventional techniques and technologies. I am particularly interested in how preparation, electronics, and performance practices can transform the sonic identity of traditional instruments, revealing new textures and dimensions of sound. My compositions have been presented at major contemporary music events in Poland and also performed abroad in Austria, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, and Hungary. As a performer, I investigate the intersection of body movement, improvisation, and sonic expression. I approach instruments as dynamic, evolving entities—spaces of acoustic experimentation where sound is shaped by touch, friction, and resonance. My interdisciplinary practice extends into exploring real-time interactions between gesture and sound.

Life Long and Prosper (生生不息) is a musical piece reflecting the lives and hopes of the underprivileged in Hong Kong’s urban areas. The creator aims to raise awareness of the living conditions of residents in Hong Kong’s impoverished neighborhoods and to inspire greater care and support for these vulnerable groups. The work highlights the resilience and optimism of those living in hardship, emphasizing the power of social mutual aid and compassion. Enhanced by AI-driven visual and audio generation technologies, the piece delivers a more dynamic and expressive experience, allowing the audience to deeply connect with its profound meaning and emotional resonance through both visual and auditory senses.

PhD in Technical Theory of Modern Electroacoustica Music, Central Conservatory of Music, Studied under Professor Xiaobing Li Distinguished Professor, Academy of Music, Linyi University Executive Committee Member, Computational Art Subdivision, China Computer Federation (CCF) Member, Beijing Musicians Association

My Computer’s Interpretation of Falling Down This piece explores the sounds of objects falling, rolling, spinning, and sliding across different surfaces. Using a text-to-sound model, the sounds were generated based on programmatically crafted prompts that varied material, size, and movement characteristics. The connections between sounds emerge through a machine learning model, shaping a form that feels both unpredictable and natural. It is an exploration of weight, texture, and motion, where sound traces the path of falling objects in a world of its own.

Stevie J. Sutanto (b. 1992) is an Indonesian composer and sound artist currently based in Jakarta. His practice and research focus on the intersection of artificial intelligence and sound processing. Additionally, he has interests in the critical use of laptops and augmented instruments in composition and performance. Some of his works have been performed by Duo Amrein, Ensemble Modern, Grupo 20/21, Quatuor Tana, NAMES Ensemble, and Quatuor Bozzini at festivals and events around the world, including the Manila Composers Lab (MCL), Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival (YCMF), Ruang Suara – Frankfurt Lab, Asian Composers League, Holland Festival, Ars Electronica Festival, Shanghai New Music Week, Crossroads’17, WeSA Audiovisual Festival (WeSA), International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Linux Audio Conference (LAC), and New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF).

Echoes of the History of Science This work is a unique piece of electronic music, in which all the original audio material is generated almost entirely by mathematical formulas, and the numerical values generated by some of the formulas are used to control the audio effects. This work pays homage to science by recreating five important discoveries in the history of science in the form of electronic music. First, the work uses Monte Carlo sampling method to estimate PI, through the frequency and position of random musical notes, showing the subtlety of statistical methods. Next, the part of the Mandelbrot set equation, using recursion and fractal structure in music, shows the beauty of infinite complexity in mathematics. The third part of the work uses the Lorentz transformation equation to simulate the space-time change of objects as they approach the speed of light. Through changes in rhythm and 3D sound, the music reproduces the core ideas of relativity, bringing an auditory experience that approximates the speed of light. Next, through the demonstration of the second law of thermodynamics, the music simulates the state of molecular motion, reflecting the entropy increase process of the isolated system, gradually moving toward disorder and complexity, revealing the direction and irreversibility of energy transfer. Finally, the Schrodinger equation section, which shows the probability and uncertainty of quantum systems through the change and superposition of waveforms, takes the listener on a wonderful journey into the microscopic world. This work not only shows the profound connotation of scientific discovery, but also reproduces the beauty and complexity of scientific principles through musical expression, bringing listeners a profound experience that transcends science and art.

Ziqian Qiao (b.1995) is a composer and postdoctoral researcher at the Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, where she focuses on symbolic music emotion recognition and AI-driven computational music composition currently. She holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), with her works covers acoustic electronic music, mixed electronics integrating live instruments, and interactive electronic music.

Yu Pan (b.1986) is a Senior Engineer and Ph.D. candidate at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China, specializing in Music AI and Music Information Technology. A member of the Chinese Musicians Association and committees in CAAI and CCF, he has contributed to major Social Science Fund and Natural Science Fund projects focusing on the intersection of music and AI, and quantitative research on music intelligence and cognitive neuroscience. His interests lie in Control Theory and Algorithmic Music, Music Information Retrieval, Physiological Signal Processing and Music Therapy, and the Philosophy of Music Composition Engineering.

VICE CITY 作品提交 This composition centers on a Cyberpunk aesthetic, constructing a sonic landscape where futuristic technology collides with human civilization. Inspired by the paradoxical “high-tech, low-life” ethos of the Cyberpunk worldview, the piece uses sound to metaphorize a transformative process where post-apocalyptic ruins coexist with digital rebirth—cold machinery and human warmth achieve a delicate equilibrium amidst chaos.
1.VOCAL PROCESSING The artist employs recorded Bulgarian vocal choir as the core material, deconstructing and reconstructing the vocals through AI-driven audio processing techniques (e.g., spectral morphing via GRM Tools, spatiotemporal granular processing via Soundtoys, and granular synthesis engines in Padshop). Leveraging SpecCraft’s AI algorithms for precise formant shifting and dynamic phase modulation, the vocals retain their organic texture while acquiring a mechanized “digital breath,” achieving coexistence between “original timbral preservation” and “cyborgization.” Additionally, Supertone-GOYO Voice Separator is used for intelligent noise reduction, significantly enhancing vocal clarity, outperforming traditional tools like Waves X-Noise.
2.ELECTRONIC ELEMENTS Other layers are generated by modular synthesizers, incorporating glitch-driven rhythms, industrial noise samples, and AI-generated pulse sequences. For timbral design, SONICCHARGE Synplant 2 is used to derive AI-generated variations from raw industrial samples, automatically producing hundreds of iterations and selecting optimal matches to ensure a blend of technological precision and organic textures.
3.MIXING & MASTERING During mixing, Sonible pure:EQ and pure:verb utilize AI to analyze frequency characteristics of vocals and electronic elements, generating customized EQ and reverb parameters to enhance spatial depth. Mastering combines LANDR’s one-click AI mastering reference with Logic Pro’s intelligent mastering plugin, optimizing overall loudness and frequency balance through dynamic response curves. The final result embodies acoustic tension under the theme of “peaceful metamorphosis between apocalypse and rebirth.”

Danny ZHAO(Composer) began studying piano in early childhood. In 2017, she was admitted to the Affiliated Middle School of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, receiving the Beijing Municipal Government Scholarship the same year. From 2018 to 2020, she ranked first in annual comprehensive evaluations and received the Shuping Scholarship. In 2021, she entered the Central Conservatory of Music as the top scorer in Electronic Music Composition, studying under Professors Peng Guan and Qi Qian. In 2024, she was awarded the National Scholarship and was recommended for direct admission to graduate studies. Her awards include: Grand Prize at the 34th Barletta International Competition (Italy), First Prizes at the 10th Sibelius International Composition Competition and the 15th China University Computer Design Competition, Second Prize at IEMC 2022, Excellence Award at SOMI 2023. Her work includes: mixing for CCTV’s Return to the Summit of the Earth and Zhejiang TV’s Feilai Peak (Top 10 Chinese Documentaries of 2024 nomination), arrangement for Tianjin People’s Art Theatre’s Gan Daying, and large-scale percussion arrangement for the Jianli Marimba Festival. Her sound installation was exhibited at the Royal College of Art. Her soundtrack works have been selected or awarded by the FIRST International Film Festival, CFDG Youth Director Program, Xunguang Original Support Plan, the 24th BFA Animation Awards, the 31st College Student Film Festival, and the ReelFocus Documentary Lab. She also composed for indie games.

Maowen Tang(Visual Engineer), His works focus on audiovisual, music installation and inter-media art.His works have won prizes and have been selected to present in the international musical activeties,including Shanghai Concert Hall, Hangzhou International Electronic Music Festival, PRIX CIME Electroacoustic Music Competition.

Before the Red is an interactive audiovisual work that aims to capture the flow of time and the intangibility of emotions, using AI algorithms to construct intricate sensory scenes. In the unpredictable changes, in the tense soundscape, on the border of the red limit, from faint whispers to fierce confrontations, through limited time to reach the boundless sound field. This work features double bass and glitch timbres, some generated by transforming double bass recordings through neural network model by autoencoder. The core of the sound design lies in the interplay between extended instrumental traditional techniques and electronic textures, creating sharp contrasts and dynamic fusion. Rather than deforming acoustic sounds through live processing, the work emphasizes the expressive potential of the real instrument itself, taking audience from the tangible reality to the abstract sound world. The control route of this work is gesture control sound, and sound control vision. By measuring the performer’s electromyographic signals, it allows for a wider range of expressive possibilities. A machine learning model is used to learn the performer’s gesture data, providing the performer with a flexible interactive system that can be controlled by himself. Separating gesture control from traditional playing helps to clearly present two distinct ways of expression. I have been dedicated to exploring the practice of digital audio and AI in music composition, and collaborating with performers to search more possibilities in technological performance environments. In “Before the Red”, the multiple interactions closely connect gesture, audition and vision.

ZHAO Yixuan is a composer, lecturer at the Electronic Music Center, Department of Music AI and Music Information Technology, Central Conservatory of Music, China, visiting researcher at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, UK, member of Electroacoustic Music Association of China (EMAC). She worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Central Conservatory of Music. She has been dedicated to exploring the practice of digital audio and AI in music composition, and collaborating with performers to search more possibilities in technological performance environments. Her composition, which mainly focuses on interactive music, electroacoustic music, contemporary music, and new media art, her works have won numerous prizes and performed in many international conferences and concerts, including Journées d’Informatique Musicale, NIME, TiMP, IRCAM Forum, China-UK International Music Festival, Nottingham New Music Festival, MUSICACOUSTICA-BEIJING, Summit on Music Intelligence, Beijing Youth Arts Festival, WOCMAT Taiwan, etc.

Shared Moment: The Bright Moon serves as an experimental case study to explore the concept of the Virtual Ensemble through a networked digital score. The title, Shared Moment: The Bright Moon, is inspired by the Chinese poem “海上生明月，天涯共此时” (The bright moon shines over the sea, and from far away we share this moment together), which reflects the concept of shared experience despite physical distance. The project aims to test how remote musicians, connected only through digital networks and brainwave interfaces, can co-create music without physical co-presence. A key aspect of this study is gathering qualitative insights from the participants to analyze how this new form of networked collaboration reshapes their perception of musical time and presence. The exploration of the Virtual Ensemble in Shared Moment: The Bright Moon offers a new perspective on musicking in the digital era. By integrating NIRS data and remote participation, this work challenges traditional notions of presence, agency, and temporality, enabling performers to engage in dynamic musical dialogue across distances.

Zhang Yuan is a faculty member in the Department of AI Music and Music Information Technology at the Central Conservatory of Music and holds a PhD in Electronic Music Composition. She is a core member of the Digital Score Laboratory, a joint initiative between the Central Conservatory of Music and the European Research Council (ERC). She translated the Chinese edition of The Digital Score: Musicianship, Creativity and Innovation (published by Central Conservatory of Music Press). She explores innovative pedagogical approaches that integrate artificial intelligence with electronic music composition. Her research focuses on experimental orchestras for networked music creation and performance. She has also contributed to the development of the twelve-tone module for the Conservatory’s automatic composition system, as well as the design of an instructional support system for the Conservatory’s basic theory of composition course.

阵 Formation is a sketch drawn with musical materials within a fixed time span. It fills in blocks of sound according to a temporal‐contour framework derived from both global and local calculations, reinforcing the piece’s internal sense of time, and uses contrasts and spatial distribution of materials to generate a powerful climax at the golden‐ratio point of the work. In its timbral design, “Formation” also draws on the four curved‐square phalanx formations of the Qin Terracotta Army: – the kneeling and standing bowmen infantry phalanxes, – the chariot cavalry phalanx formed by four‐horse chariots,- – the rectangular phalanx mixing chariot, infantry, and cavalry warriors, – and the long cavalry phalanx of numerous horsemen, using their distinct distributions to organize timbral materials and shape dramatic contrasts throughout the composition.

Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the Central Conservatory of Music, Director of the Department of Music Artificial Intelligence, National Leading Talent in Philosophy and Social Sciences, recipient of the Central Propaganda Department’s “Four Kinds of Talents” award, expert entitled to special government allowances, Principal Investigator of major national social science projects, the Chair of the China Computer Federation (CCF) Computational Art Branch, the Chair of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI) Art and Artificial Intelligence Commission. He also leads the “National Huang Danian-style Faculty Team” in higher education. A Doctor of Composition, Li Xiaobing graduated from the Composition Department of the Central Conservatory of Music, where he studied under the renowned composer Professor Wu Zuqiang, Honorary President of the Chinese Musicians Association and the Central Conservatory of Music. His musical creations span almost all genres, with works enjoying wide popularity and significant influence. He has been honored with numerous domestic and international awards, including the Golden Bell Award, the Wenhua Grand Prize, the Wenhua Composition Award, first prizes in national opera and dance drama competitions, and the “Five One Project” Award from the Central Propaganda Department.

Continuum refers to the gradual transition between two things. In this work, the concept of “spacetime continuum” from physics is borrowed, and sound parameters are calculated and transformed using the Lorenz equations. This is combined with a 3D audio presentation, allowing the narrative of the music to continuously transition and transform between time and space. It explores the relationship between the dimensions of time and space in music and human perceptual expectations from both a physical and psychological perspective, showcasing the multiple dimensions of music and exploring the intersection of music and science.

Luan Jia is a doctoral graduate from the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China, and an associate professor at the School of Music, Shandong Normal University in Jinan, China. He also serves as the director of the Music Creation Research Center. His music composition style is diverse and versatile. His representative works include the opera “The Exile’s Song”, the ethnic song and dance drama “Phoenix Flying and Qiang Dance,” and the musical “Dream Apartment.” He has also composed music and created theme songs for numerous films, TV dramas, plays, acrobatic dramas, and children’s plays. He has won the gold award in the Electronic Music Composition Competition at the Summit on Music Intelligence(SOMI).

String Theory, Soaring Dragon This piece is written for guqin, electronic music, and AI. The inspiration for the work comes from String Theory in theoretical physics, which aims to explain the properties of all fundamental particles and forces through a unified theory and describe physical phenomena in the universe, including quantum mechanics and general relativity. The core idea of String Theory is that fundamental particles are composed of one-dimensional “strings,” with different vibrational modes corresponding to different subatomic particles. The guqin, one of the oldest stringed instruments in Chinese civilization, carries the excellent traditional culture of China and was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2003. The work combines String Theory in physics with the abstract imagery of guqin music in a hyperdimensional manner, creating a unique musical experience. Based on the traditional Chinese guqin piece “Longxiangcao,” the team developed a guqin traditional music dataset and used deep learning technology to train and generate new guqin music. Combined with electronic music and high-precision motion capture technology, the piece integrates human performers playing classical instruments, virtual instruments, and AI-generated guqin music into a multimedia presentation that combines audio-visual synesthesia and interactive sound and image elements. This organic fusion of real and virtual elements paints a future vision of the musical metaverse, showcasing the vitality and creativity of the Chinese nation, known as the “descendants of the dragon,” in the development of the musical metaverse.

LIU Enyang is a doctoral candidate in Electronic Music Composition at the Department of Music Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at the Central Conservatory of Music, supervised by Professor Li Xiaobing. He has long been deeply involved in the research and creation of electronic music, with his works winning awards five times at the Beijing International Electronic Music Festival. In addition to his achievements in electronic music, Liu has extended his creative explorations into various fields, composing a substantial amount of music for film and television, theatrical stage productions, experimental art, pop music, and advertisements. He has participated in the music creation for films directed by renowned directors such as John Woo and Gu Changwei.

Dr. WEI Bing, Associate Professor in the Department of AI Music and Music Information Technology at theCentral Conservatory of Music (CCoM); Executive Committee Member of China Computer Federation (CCF) Computational Art Branch; crossover artist; founder of the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Guqin Art Week”, funded by the National Art Fund and supported by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau. Holding dual Ph.D.s from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and CCoM (supervised by President YU Feng and CAE Academician DAI Qionghai), he graduated with B.Eng. and M.Eng. from Tsinghua University, and with career experience at Christie’s and Lévy Gorvy in the fine arts industry. He led the pioneering “AI Shi Pu” project developing AI-driven digitization of Guqin Jian Zi Pu, and created the world’s first AI-generated Guqin piece “Zhu” (2021), featured in CCTV’s documentary “Age of Digital Intelligence” and major academic forums. His digital artworks, including interactive installations, have been exhibited at the Asia Digital Art Exhibition (2021), Guangzhou Cultural Fair (2021), CIFTIS (2023), and Zhongguancun Digital Music Festival (2023).

The Dialogue Between the Machine and the Pipa This is an electronic music composition inspired by AI and brain science technologies. It presents a dynamic sensory experience through the movement and visual data of a robotic dog, combined with near-infrared brain functional imaging technology to generate electronic music voices. The piece also incorporates the melodic essence of the pipa to unfold a dialogue across time and space. The music is not merely a performance by a musician; it is an interaction within an intelligent ecosystem co-created by humans and machines. The composer hopes that this project represents not only technological advancement but also the continuation of human emotion and creativity. Under the guidance of technology, music becomes a bridge connecting the soul and the future. “Dialogue Between Pipa and Machine” sparks new possibilities in the realms of AI, brain science, and art creation.

Wang Han holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing, China, where she studied under Professor Li Xiaobing, the head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at CCOM. Wang Han’s creative work is profoundly influenced by Chinese traditional culture and natural aesthetics. Her piece “The Story of AI” received recognition at the 2nd “SOMI” Composition Competition. Her multimedia work “Who Am I” won First.

The Disappearing Bell is a pure electronic music work presented in fixed media sound format, inspired by and sourced from natural ambient sounds including temple bells, hunting grounds, avalanche rumblings, and the rustle of falling leaves. The piece is an exploration of the intersection between natural and electronic music through meticulous processing and creative manipulation of sound fragments. In the realm of electronic music technology, the creators skillfully employed a variety of advanced audio processing techniques in accordance with the inherent properties of the sound materials and their expressive artistic needs. These techniques include granular synthesis, subtractive synthesis, resampling, spectral morphing, and pitch shifting. The organic integration of these techniques not only enriches the spectral forms of the audio materials but also embodies the composers’ pursuit of a profound aesthetic concept within musical language. The narrative of “The Disappearing Bell” is centered around the thematic search for a bell sound. Sound fragments, like hidden clues, are ingenely woven into the temporal flow of the piece. From fragmentation to reassembly, from concrete to abstract, these fragmented sounds, interacting with different soundscape scenarios, collectively craft a vibrant journey of sound “hunting.” This narrative traverses the intertwined realms of time and space, capturing the spontaneity of nature while provoking a reflection on the imagistic essence of sound.

Wang Han holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing, China, where she studied under Professor Li Xiaobing, the head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at CCOM. Wang Han’s creative work is profoundly influenced by Chinese traditional culture and natural aesthetics. Her piece “The Story of AI” received recognition at the 2nd “SOMI” Composition Competition. Her multimedia work “Who Am I” won First.

Horse is an interactive electronic music piece that integrates the pipa with neuroscience, using sound to depict the majesty and freedom of a galloping horse. The composition is divided into three sections, portraying the horse’s power, motion, and liberation.
Section 1: Majestic Presence The piece opens with the deep and powerful tones of the pipa, evoking the image of a proud horse standing tall with strength and dignity. This section sets the foundation for the grandeur and spirit of the horse.
Section 2: Exhilarating Gallop The tempo accelerates suddenly as the pipa employs rapid tremolos and plucking techniques to mimic the sound of galloping hooves. This section captures the dynamic intensity of a horse racing across vast landscapes, creating an immersive sense of speed and movement.
Section 3: Echoing Serenity The melody gradually softens, blending the expressive pipa techniques with ethereal electronic sounds. It paints the image of a horse slowing its pace under the sunset, enveloped in a vast and profound landscape, leaving behind a lingering sense of tranquility and depth.

Wang Han holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Music Composition from the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) in Beijing, China, where she studied under Professor Li Xiaobing, the head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at CCOM. Wang Han’s creative work is profoundly influenced by Chinese traditional culture and natural aesthetics. Her piece “The Story of AI” received recognition at the 2nd “SOMI” Composition Competition. Her multimedia work “Who Am I” won First.

Four Seasons Fragrance Have friends ever heard of the Proust phenomenon? For example, when people smell a certain odor, they will recall the scene where they once smelled this odor. The work takes the unique scents representing the four seasons as the development thread of the music. Based on the composer’s true feelings, several scents are selected, such as woody scent, refreshing scent, grassy scent, floral scent and fruity scent. Express the flavor of the seasons through musical language. Meanwhile, based on the characteristics of olfactory perception, design five sections: late autumn, winter, spring, summer and early autumn, and map the olfactory perception features to the spatial and frequency parameters of the music. Through the interaction between the cello and computer music, the scents of the four seasons are transformed into auditory language. The on-site installed odor player and the audience’s electroencephalogram (EEG) signals provide real-time feedback, creating an immersive space of “olfactory perception audio”. By anchoring the seasonal frequencies with odor coordinates, the audience can hear the code of time’s passage amid the woody scent of late autumn and the floral fragrance of midsummer.

Wang Xiaoxuan, a composer and cross-sensory interaction artist, holds a Ph.D. in electronic music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music. She is a graduate student of Professor Li Xiaobing, the director of the Department of Music Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at the Central Conservatory of Music and a doctoral supervisor. She is currently an associate professor at Shenyang Conservatory of Music, a member of the China Musicians’ Association, a member of the Liaoning Musicians’ Association, an executive committee member of the Computational Arts Branch of the China Computer Federation, and a member of the China Chorus Association. Music creation involves computer music, cross-sensory interaction design, art songs, chamber music, chorus, etc. She won the second prize in the 2019 Brixworth Female Composers Competition in the UK. Won the Best Work Award in the Sound Silence Thought Electronic Music Composition Competition in Pennsylvania, USA in 2020; The electronic Music “The Phoenix Songs II” was included in the album “Electroacoustic & Beyond7” released by the British RMN Music record company in October 2022. Several electronic music works have been successively selected for the 2022 and 2023 “World Earth Day” Global Marathon Real-time Music Festival in different locations. The electronic music pieces “Phoenix Arrives” and “Square and Circle” respectively won the silver award in Group A and the excellence award in Group B of the 2023 Second World Music Artificial Intelligence Conference Electronic Music Composition Competition. He has presided over and participated in several scientific research projects at the college and provincial levels, and authored the monograph “Intelligent Music Future: Frontier Exploration of Interdisciplinary Art Creation”.

FOMO is an AI-aided acousmatic composition inspired by the experience of “Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).” FOMO is a psychological phenomenon describing the anxiety or unease one feels when believing others are having rewarding experiences they are missing out on. This phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent in the age of social media and digital communication. FOMO explores the painful addiction to information and the unsettling feeling of being overwhelmed by endless data streams. The sonic material is generated with AI technology in two ways. First, a custom-trained model processes a corpus of audio extracted from a continuous screen recording of YouTube Shorts, representing the chaotic and noisy soundscape of social media platforms. This model functions both as a synthesiser oscillator and as an audio transformation tool to process everyday sounds. Second, the work incorporates AI-generated poems by ChatGPT and DeepSeek, composed of attention-grabbing phrases that amplify the sense of FOMO. These texts are vocalised using an AI-powered text-to-speech application. In addition to AI-generated sounds, the composition also employs social media sounds used in training the AI model, as well as mouse clicks and electromagnetic recordings from portable electronic devices. Working with AI tools is an intuitive choice for exploring the FOMO phenomenon, as much of the information we encounter on digital platforms is AI-generated and filtered through AI-powered recommendation systems. Engaging with the language and voice of the machine allows me to examine the complex relationship between human and machine, particularly in the process of collaborating with AI tools and organising AI-generated sonic materials.

Zhao Jiajing (family name-given name, b. China) is an electroacoustic composer, sound designer, and interdisciplinary artist based in London. Zhao Jiajing’s artistic practice encompasses sound, installation, and new media, exploring themes such as temporality, technology, digital cultures, and nature. Since 2019, he has been deeply engaged in spatial sound, creating multichannel compositions and installations. His works employ space as both an expressive medium and a responsive instrument. Zhao Jiajing’s works have been presented internationally at events and venues such as the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (US), Soundcinema Düsseldorf (DE), Espacios Sonoros (AR), Sound/Image Festival (UK), Musicacoustica (CN), Barbican Centre (UK), IRCAM (FR) , Lisboa Incomum (PT), among many others. As a multi-skilled composer and sound designer, he has collaborated with pioneering theatre groups, performers, and visual artists, creating projects that captivate audiences worldwide. Zhao is also the founder and director of Soundworlds Studio, a London-based immersive sound design studio. Zhao holds an MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art and is currently pursuing a PhD in Electroacoustic Music at the University of the Arts London (CRiSAP) under the supervision of Adam Stanović. He is also a mentor and visiting lecturer for the MA in Designing Audio Experience at University College London.

UTMORI is a generative composition that explores how intangible, pre-sonic forms what might be called potentials rather than sounds can become the material of music. Drawing inspiration from the asymmetric pulse of eotmori, the piece unfolds not through fixed rhythms or melodies, but through the shaping of invisible contours: abstract energies that hover beneath perception, waiting to be pulled into form. Here, music is not composed in notes, but in tendencies curves, weights, and tensions moving through an unseen space. These latent forces are sculpted and sequenced into what might be understood as sonic objects: entities that carry emotional density without adhering to fixed pitch or rhythm. They emerge, shift, dissolve, and reconfigure, producing textures that feel both rooted and uncertain, familiar yet indeterminate. Rather than treating tradition as something to be preserved or replicated, UTMORI draws from its spirit of openness and transformation. This work extends that logic into a generative system where even the act of listening becomes unstable. Nothing repeats exactly, yet everything carries memory. In this process, the boundary between sound and structure blurs, and the work becomes less a composition than an evolving encounter with the possible.

Junson Park is a Korean artist whose work interrogates the boundaries between technology, perception, and human emotion. With a background in Electronic Production and Design from Berklee College of Music and an MFA in Music Technology from CalArts, he investigates how machine learning systems can operate not simply as tools of automation, but as perceptual infrastructures that condition, distort, and expand sensory and cognitive experience. His research focuses on how algorithmic systems particularly those involving generative audio, visual reconfiguration, and real-time interaction can function as agents of affective modulation, reframing the dynamics between control, intention, and emergent behavior within aesthetic practice.

Galaxy The starry sky has long been a symbolic medium for Chinese literati to express their emotions. This piece uses “stars” as its source of inspiration, with the sound of the Zheng metaphorically conveying the connection between “stars” and “hearts.” The work experimentally incorporates AI technology: using AI visual algorithms and real-time timbre rendering algorithms, the performer can break free from the limitations of physical instruments and play virtual instruments in the air. The performer can not only control pitch, duration, dynamics, and articulation with precision in space but also perform operations like timbre switching and effect changes that are impossible in conventional performances.

Sun Yuming, Ph.D., is a composer, music producer, and lecturer of electronic music composition at the Central Conservatory of Music. He studied under Professor Li Xiaobing, Director of the Department of AI Music and Music Information Technology and Ph.D. advisor at the Central Conservatory of Music. Sun was admitted to the conservatory in 2008, where he was recommended for a master’s program and later pursued a Ph.D. in 2020, graduating in 2023 and staying on as a faculty member. Sun has received numerous honors, including the National Graduate Scholarship , the China Telecom Scholarship, the Soong Ching Ling Foundation-Gucci Music Fund, and recognition as an Outstanding Student in Beijing and an Outstanding Graduate in Beijing. He was also named an Advanced Individual of Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. His compositions have won first prizes in the 7th and 11th MUSICACOUSTIC-BEIJING Composition Competitions and the Oskar Kolberg Electronic Music Composition Special Competition. Sun has contributed to the music production of numerous large-scale programs and has served as the music director for various CCTV shows, including “Charity Night,” the “Shining Names” award ceremonies, the special program “Safe Travels” for National Traffic Safety Day, and “Landmarks of Chinese Civilization.” His works are widely performed across major media platforms, and his piece “The Ship” was featured on the popular show “I Am a Singer” in 2019.

Eight Pilots: The Fall of Younger Brother Lin Heng from the Sky (from the original ballroom dance drama April Days on Earth) The original ballroom dance drama “April Days on Earth” masterfully blends Chinese traditional culture with the vocabulary of ballroom dance. Using ballroom dance as its medium, the drama vividly portrays prominent historical figures from modern China, effectively integrating traditional Chinese culture with modern international art forms, showcasing cross-cultural exchanges and highlighting the openness and inclusiveness of Eastern culture with strong cultural confidence. Inspired by Lin Huiyin’s modern poem written in 1934, the drama captures the gentle elegance and hopeful atmosphere of the poem, perfectly embodying its overall style. By intertwining history with poetic narrative, it affectionately illustrates Lin Huiyin’s devotion to Chinese architectural research and the preservation of the nation’s historical architecture, emotionally reenacting the patriotic story of this remarkable woman. The episode “Eight Pilots: The Fall of Younger Brother Lin Heng from the Sky” coincides with the discovery of Foguang Temple, the same year as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The harsh winter of national crisis soon followed. Lin Huiyin and Liang Sicheng relocated with Southwest Associated University to Kunming, where eight youthful pilots generously provided a small house for the Liang family. They soon became like family, living closely together. When the devastating bombings finally arrived in Kunming, the eight pilots bravely took to the skies to confront the Japanese forces and heroically sacrificed their lives for their country. Lin Huiyin’s younger brother, Lin Heng, also courageously perished the following year in an air battle over Chengdu. Stricken with grief, Lin Huiyin penned the mournful elegy “Mourning My Third Brother Heng.” 

Voice-over Text： In July 1937, just as we discovered Foguang Temple, winter quietly fell upon our homeland—China, the war had begun. Si Cheng and I travelled with the National Southwestern Associated University to Kunming. Amid hardship, we were cared for by eight young fighter pilots, who clung to us with a tender, childlike devotion. A quiet bond took root between us. My brother Lin Heng, like them, was noble and kind, his heart full of love for his country. Their training was not for glory, but for the day they might offer all they had—even their lives—for China. O brother! My brother! No fitting words of mine mourning your death — It is the call of the time for you, More impossible in the future to express my love to you, Yet it will remain forever in the sky. This ruthless feat is the poetry of our time; This silent glory is the glaring you.

Qian Qi, composer and music producer, Associate Director and Professor of the Department of Music Artificial Intelligence and Music Information Technology at the Central Conservatory of Music, Director of the Electronic Music Teaching and Research Center, Doctoral Supervisor. Recipient of China’s Golden Bell Award, Ministry of Culture’s Wenhua Award, and honored as “Capital Youth Creative Star.” His musical compositions span symphonic music, film scores, pop music, electronic music, musical theatre, game soundtracks, traditional Chinese instrumental music, and vocal music. Representative works: “Silk Road Journey” (winner of the 93rd British Blackpool Latin Formation Championship, setting the best record for Chinese participants, reported by Xinhua News Agency); “Moonlit Night” (winner of the 93rd British Blackpool Modern Formation Championship, also setting the best record for Chinese participants, reported by Xinhua News Agency); large multimedia music productions “Crystal Taiji,” “New Voice of the Silk Road,” and “Flags and Drums”; TV series “Wang Gang Telling Stories” and “Unaware of the Passing Years”; CCTV’s large-scale anti-corruption documentary “Always on the Road of Party Style Building”; epic ethnic musical “Soul of the Braid”; original revolutionary musical “Yak Revolution”; original ballroom dance drama “April Days on Earth”; large acrobatic show “A Finger Spanning a Thousand Years”; and numerous large-scale cultural and tourism performances.

schíma morphe íchos [shape, form, sound] (SMI) is a reactive performance that brings together sound with visual and physical structures to explore ways of coping with a changing environment. Sculptures made by artist Eleni-Ira Panourgia are digitally augmented by a 9DOF sensing system crafted by Martin Parker. Connected together via a router and sending movement data to sound-generating, ambisonic-enabled software, the work becomes at once a system, an instrument and a sound performance. In this work, sounds recorded while making the sculptures are transformed and combined with various sound processing systems. These expose multiple sound manipulation parameters that are modulated as the sculptures are moved around. SMI creates a highly dynamic environment in which spatial sound synthesis depends directly on sculptural objects, physical material properties, and the way they are handled by performers and audiences. Sculptures become an instrument to be explored and learned. For ICMC we present SMI with sculptures made from textiles. Sounds collected from the surfaces of this material during the making process are the sources manipulated and transposed specially for this performance. Towards the end of the performance, audience members are invited to join the performers in exploring the instrument.

Dr. Eleni-Ira Panourgia

I am a sound and visual artist and researcher. I completed a PhD in Art at the University of Edinburgh as a scholar of the Onassis Foundation. My work focuses on the development of new forms of expression and creative methods that combine sound, objects, spaces, and environments. I explore the potential of such complex morphologies within artistic, design, social, and ecological processes. My work has been presented internationally in museums, galleries, festivals, exhibitions, radio shows, academic journals, edited volumes, and conferences. I am co-founder and managing editor of the journal Airea: Arts and Interdisciplinary Research. I am currently a teaching and research fellow at Gustave Eiffel University.

Dr. Martin Parker

I am Senior Lecturer in Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh where I compose music, design sound installations and collaborate widely with visual artists and designers, exploring how musical computing comes together with people and places. I am currently researching sonic identity and Artifical Intelligence as a fellow on the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK). On this project I am working with contemporary music ensembles, museum and heritage sector and a youth group to devise new modes of expression with responsibly developed and designed AI systems for sound and music.

Balance is a realtime interactive composition for both sound and video that uses the Gametrak position tracking system, Kyma, and Max/Jitter. Two years ago I suffered a concussion. While the impact of my concussion has substantially been resolved, I have had to learn to manage disruptions in my ability to physically balance that are provoked by extended reading times of texts on computer screens which generate conflicts between my visual processing and vestibular systems. Since my primary expressive tool is the computer, this journey has sometimes proved a challenge. Still, the best way for me to develop meaningful understandings about the nature of balance, imbalance, and the essence of my condition is through musical creation. As a metaphor for this loss of control, I use algorithms that produce indeterminate results throughout both the sonic and visual domains of the piece.

Jeffrey Stolet is an American composer and virtuoso performer of electroacoustic and computer music. Stolet is a professor of music and director of Music Technology at the University of Oregon. He received a Ph.D. in Music at the University of Texas at Austin and was among the very first individuals to be appointed to a Philip H. Knight professorship at the University of Oregon. Stolet’s work has been presented around the world and is available on the Newport Classic, IMG Media, Cambria, SEAMUS and ICMA labels. Presentations of Stolet’s work include major electroacoustic and new media festivals, such as the International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States Conference, the MusicAcoustica Festival in Beijing, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Kyma International Sound Symposium, the Third Practice Festival, the Annual Electroacoustic Music Festival in Santiago de Chile, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, SIGGRAPH, the transmediale International Media Art Festival, Boston Cyber Arts Festival, Cycle de concerts de Musique par ordinateur, the International Conference for New Interfaces for Musical Expression, the International Workshop on Computer Music and Audio Technology in Taiwan, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival “Primavera en La Habana,” in Cuba. In addition, Stolet’s work has been presented in such diverse venues as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pompidou Center in Paris, the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu, Japan, and the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. Acknowledgement of Stolet’s work in China is extensive and broad as he holds honorary professorships at two important music conservatories and has received a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to interactive music at Musicacoustica and for his extensive work lecturing at Chinese institutions of higher education.

Scary Guitar? No! Victory Guitar! This piece tells the story of a young boy learning to play the guitar. Starting with a dislike for the instrument and struggling to play even a simple piece, he eventually masters various styles of playing through persistence and growth. The journey is filled with unique experiences along the way. If you enjoy it, feel free to listen! The sound of rain in the beginning represents the boy practicing under difficult conditions, while the electronic music in the second half reflects his growing proficiency in different musical styles. Enjoy the journey!

Guanjun Qin (Champion Qin) is an award-winning composer, producer, topliner, and a CSC Full Scholarship-funded PhD student in the Department of Music at the University of Bristol, under the supervision of Professor Neal Farwell. His works have won awards at many international music competitions, including the Denny Awards (China & USA), IEMC (China), Young Lion*ess (Germany), Vigevano Soundscapes (Italy), and EAMC (China). He has collaborated with and composed music for numerous famous artists, such as Huang Xiaoyun and Jackson Wang, a member of the popular Asian idol group GOT7. Additionally, he has composed soundtracks for many TV series and cartoons, including GG BOND, which garnered over 50 million viewers in its first week of broadcasting.

Three obscure moments, briefly illuminated.

Composer-performer Oliver Kwapis (b. 1997) has written orchestral, chamber, vocal, and electronic pieces, which have been performed and recorded by a diverse range of ensembles and artists, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic (through the LA Phil’s Composer Fellowship Program), National Children’s Chorus, Wet Ink Ensemble, Calder Quartet, Atlantic Brass Quintet, Jacobs School of Music Concert Orchestra, Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and pianist Eric Huebner. His work has been featured at ICMC, NIME, NYCEMF, NSEME, Fresh Inc Festival, June in Buffalo, the Mostly Modern Festival Institute, and the soundSCAPE Composition and Performer Exchange. He holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Data-Driven Music Performance and Composition at the University of Oregon’s School of Music and Dance under the tutelage of Jeffrey Stolet, where he is also a Graduate Employee in the Department of Intermedia Music Technology.

Cape Town Starlet During a 2024 trip to Cape Town, South Africa, we found a Red-Winged Starling that had roosted in the fire escape of our hotel room. It woke us up every morning with a beautiful yet haunting melody. I recorded the call on our last day there and used it as the basis and inspiration for this piece. The title is a simple pun on the bird’s name, as the bird seemed to say “look at me, look at me” over and over. Musically, the instrumental material consists exclusively of fragments from a transcription of the Red-Winged Starling’s call. The call is divided into three sections: the first is the main “contact” call, as the bird is trying to get the attention of a potential mate or searching for food; the second is a response call; and the final is an alarm call. The soloist presents all three sections in different orders and, at times, can play any of the calls in random order. The electronics take the original bird call recordings and use granular signal processing to pull and stretch the sounds into smaller bits that are then recombined to create new sounds. At several points, the soloist is asked to improvise with these new sounds as if they are chirping with their digital counterpart. The electronics also uses a live recording of the soloist and transforms those sounds into a dialogue with the digital bird transformations. Which sound is which? That is for the listener to figure out. Support for this project came from the Derryl & Helen Haymon Professorship at the Louisiana State University School of Music.

Stephen David Beck (b. 1959) teaches music composition and electroacoustic music at Louisiana State University, where he is the Derryl & Helen Haymon Professor of Music. He received his PhD in music composition and theory from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Henri Lazarof, Elaine Barkin, Paul Reale, Alden Ashforth, and Roger Bourland. In 1985, he studied computer music at IRCAM with the support of an Annette Kade/Fulbright Fellowship and joined the faculty at LSU in 1988. Since 2003, he has held a joint faculty position at the Center for Computation & Technology, where he established the Cultural Computing group and led the development of the PhD program in Experimental Music & Digital Media.

As birds go back to their forest I came from Beijing, China. When I was a child, I can hear pigeon whistle every day. It’s really beautiful. To me it’s not only a beautiful sound but also a memory of my home town. With this idea, I wrote a laptop ensemble music called As birds Go Back to Their Forest. This is a laptop ensemble piece for 3-4 laptop performers and two flute performers, one saxophone performers and one piano performer. For Laptop performers, they are doing live coding to generate bird sounds in real-time while instrument performers are performing.

Yunze Mu is a composer, sound artist and music programmer based in Louisville, Kentucky. He is currently teaching at University of Louisville, School of Music as an Assistant Professor. He received a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) in Composition at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati where he worked on his web-based music application, Web RTcmix. Mu holds a bachelor’s degree from Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China. His music, papers, and VR installations have been presented and performed at numerous events and conferences, such as NIME, ICMC, SEAMUS, NYC Electronic Music Festival, and venues in China, Poland, France, United States, and Korea.

(un)sound objects In unsound objects, a performer co-creates sonic environments with a generative neural network. The neural network incessantly produces short loops of sound in response to text queries written by the live performer. The sounds are dynamically mixed, spatialized, and layered into continuously evolving “neural tape loops”, establishing a mixed-initiative generative co-creation system between the performer and machine. The aesthetic properties of the generated sound objects oscillate between the recognizable and unsound, sometimes resembling their real-world counterparts, sometimes diverging into uncanny and distorted forms outside our distribution of “real” sounds. The piece explores the affordances of text-queried generative audio models as “endless” spigots of sonic material in the context of a live-looping instrument with a continually evolving neural “tape”. unsound objects encourages the performer (and generative model) to break the neural medium past “in-distribution” sounds and toward (un)sound arrangements that lie at the rough edges of the model’s learned distribution.

Hugo Flores García is a Honduran computer musician, improviser, programmer, and scientist. Hugo’s creative practice spans improvised music for guitars, sound objects and electronics. He is a PhD candidate at Northwestern University, doing research at the intersection of applied machine learning, music, and human-computer interaction. Hugo’s research centers around designing new instruments for creative expression, focusing on artist-centered machine learning interfaces for the sound arts.

Break: word Language evolves continuously, shaping communication and understanding. However, its rapid transformation creates gaps between generations. In today’s digital age, new words emerge and disappear at an unprecedented pace. Words once commonly used become obsolete, while unfamiliar phrases gain meaning overnight. As I grow older, I experience the same disconnection I once observed in older generations. Rather than resisting this change, I aim to understand and reflect on it through music. The “Break” series examines shifts in communication. “Break: Word” specifically contemplates the fragmentation and reconstruction of language, mirroring how changes in words affect human interaction. The percussionist experiences discomfort as the composition alters conventional performance techniques. Normally, mallets are held in configurations such as AAAA, AAAB, or AA/BB, ensuring balance and stability. However, this piece enforces an AB/BA grip, disrupting the performer’s sense of control. The unnatural grip forces the musician to either struggle for balance or accept the imposed instability. Additionally, the pedal technique deviates from traditional usage, further challenging their expectations. The audience may or may not recognize these disruptions—just as some people notice linguistic shifts while others remain unaware. The electronic component enhances this tension by detaching itself from the vibraphone’s timbre. While most electroacoustic works extend the acoustic instrument’s sound, this piece intentionally uses 90% non-percussive sources, creating a deliberate sonic disconnect. The result is an environment where cohesion and fragmentation coexist, much like the evolving divide in language comprehension. Spatialization plays a crucial role in this work. Composed for a four-channel audio system, the piece alters the listening experience based on one’s position in the space. Those listening in stereo may only perceive fragments of the intended interactions, reinforcing the importance of perspective in both music and language. Ultimately, “Break: Word” is not simply about discomfort but about questioning how we perceive and adapt to change in communication. Just as language shifts beyond our control, shaping interactions in ways we may struggle to comprehend, this piece invites listeners to confront discomfort as an inherent part of communication.

Hyewon Kim is a composer based in Seoul, South Korea. To her, everything that produces sound holds equal significance as a musical element. She believes that, as a composer, she can collect and combine the sounds of any vibrating object to create music. Similarly, she strives to uphold the equality of human experience, ensuring that no individual—whether the wounded, the one causing harm, or the observer—is overlooked in her creative process. She studied composition under Moon Sung-jun at Chugye University for the Arts, earning both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees with distinction. She is currently an active member of the Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society (KEAMS). Her works have been performed at several domestic festivals and competitions, including Fest-M, the Korean Chamber Music Composition Festival, and the Pan Music Festival. Internationally, her work was featured at the 43rd International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Shanghai. Particularly drawn to percussion, she has composed numerous works for the medium, commissioned and performed at concerts such as Percussion Duo Moatie’s regular concerts, Choi Sori’s Korean Instrument Solo Recital, and Classical Haru. Her works also appear on the Korean percussion album EXPANSION & CONNECTION. In addition to composition, she introduces audiences to the essence of sound through the natural vibrations of objects. She conceptualizes and produces “music exhibitions,” where visitors experience the inherent sounds of various materials. In her most recent exhibition, she created an interactive experience allowing participants to perceive the sounds of steel balls striking different surfaces, later incorporating these sounds into a performed piece.

And the Glaciers Echoed is inspired by Katie Paterson’s installation entitled “Vatnajokull (the sound of)”. She used a waterproof microphone that transmitted live sound from the Jökulsárlón lagoon in Iceland, which is the largest glacier in Europe. She made a link to encourage people to connect emotionally with melting glaciers. Climate change is having a dramatically damaging effect on glaciers, and the call made a connection to see it happening. Unfortunately, this call isn’t exist anymore due to the melted glaciers. This installation touched me a lot and interested me in researching how is the melting glaciers happening tremendously around the world. I can’t even imagine how bad of the following nationally disasters after melting glaciers. “In 2016, a four-thousand-foot previously frozen mountain slope in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve collapsed, unleashing a flood of rock and mud over nearly nine square mile of glaciers. The release was so massive it was equivalent to a magnitude 5.2 earthquake…” I felt astonished and suffocated by researched glaciers information. Thus, I want to mark the processing of melting glaciers by music. During my music, you could hear the scattered dripping sound, the cracking sound, the “echo” sound of glaciers (you could also see it as whale’s sound), the calving sound of glaciers, and the collapse sound, etc.

Huan Sun is a dynamic Chinese contemporary music composer known for her innovative compositions that fuse elements of Chinese culture with contemporary artistic expressions. Drawing inspirations from Chinese traditions, installations, visual arts, fine arts and literature, she pushes the boundaries of cultural diversity through her music. Her accolades include being a finalist of September 2025 ARTZenter Institute Emerging Composer Completion Grant Program, the finalist for the 2024 Seamus/ASCAP Award and winning the Breaking Barriers Call for Orchestra Scores competition. Additionally, she was recognized as a finalist in BMP’s “Next Generation” program and won the first prize in “The 9th Yanhuang Composition Competition.” Huan Sun’s work has been showcased at renowned festivals such as the Breaking Barriers at Ravinia Festival, the SEAMUS National Conference, and IRCAM’s CIEE Summer Contemporary Music Creation + Critique Program, and Atlantic Music Festival. She has received commissions from esteemed institutions including Chicago Philharmonic Symphony, Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, the Atlantic Music Festival and IU Percussion Ensemble. Huan Sun holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, a Master of Music degree from the Mannes School of Music, and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in composition at Indiana University Bloomington.

Huixin Xue is a Chinese composer, music producer and Music AI researcher. A student under the composer professor Liu Hao, she is now studying for a PhD in Music AI at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. She graduated from the Music Engineering Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music both for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees both as the top of her major. Xue’s pieces span a range of genres, including electronic music, Chinese folk music, symphony, songs, drama music and film music. Her pieces won numerous awards, including The top Prize of the 2024 OPUS ARTIS Paris International Composition Competition, the Honorable Mention of the 2024 Sound Chain International Electronic Music Composition Competition (the only Chinese winner among the 6 winners worldwide), the second place of the 2024 Hangzhou International Electronic Music Composition Competition, the first prize of the 2024 Scandinavian International Composition Competition, the First Prize at the 9th Smederevo International Composition Competition in Serbia. Her pieces have been performed in venues such as in Shanghai Spring International Music Festival, Hangzhou International Electronic Music Festival, Beijing International Electronic Music Festival, China ASEAN Music Week and other platforms. As a Music AI researcher, she strives to explore the possibility of AI technology enabling music creation, including AI music generation model training and evaluation and AI timbre synthesis. In November 2024, she gave a speech on “Research on AI Generation of Chinese Style Meditation Music Based on Transformer” at Shanghai Conservatory of Music Young Scholars Forum – Music AI Summit Forum; Published the paper “AI playing with timbre”; In March 2024, she gave a speech on “Timbre Synthesis Technology based on Autoencoder” in Macao Polytechnic University.

Tonspur: I’m telling you the truth The acoustic nature of the marble and the ceramic grant the essence of the Marble Ceramic Scenic Score. In an artistic analogy to musical expression, the rhythmic dynamics of the marble, the inerita-related principles, the articulation of the swinging rotation and the transformation of the live electronics during the curious-playing-momentum result environment of innovative exploration by combining the characteristics of the marble and the ceramic within time and space in a distinctively individual and an immediately compositional way. Here is the occasion to pick up the marble for the desire of linking the playing of the childhood reminiscence with the globally interconnected understanding of contemporary music with respect to the playful and joyful manner. The Marble Ceramic Scenic Score is a playful and joyful environment for spurring the variety and virtuosity and work up curiosity of the contemporary music using acoustic sounds and electronic sounds through audiovisual realtime processing. A strongly embossed constitution of compositional concept and improvisational practice in a mutual interaction can be learned and perceived during the performance.

Se-Lien Chuang

Composer, pianist and media artist, 1965 born in Taiwan, since 1991 residence in Austria. The artistic and compositional emphases range from contemporary instrumental composition/ improvisation, computer music to audiovisual interactivity. International productions, research stays and lectures as well as numerous representations of compositions in Europe, Asia, North- and South America: ICMC, ISEA, NIME, NYCEMF, SMC, TENOR, Audio Mostly, SICMF Seoul, IAMAS Japan, etc.. 2016-2019 lecturer at Computer Music Studio, Institute of Composition, Conducting and Computer Music at the Anton Bruckner Private University for computer notation and contemporary playing techniques. Since 1996 jointly with Andreas Weixler running Atelier Avant Austria, with key aspects in development of audiovisual interactive systems and audio/visual realtime/non-realtime processing, computer music and algorithmic composition.

Andreas Weixler

Born 1963 in Graz, Austria, is a composer for computer music with an emphasis in intermedia realtime processing. He is teaching at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, as well as InterfaceCulture of the University of Arts in Linz and serves as an associate university professor at the CMS – computer music studio of Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz where he initiated the intermedia concert hall the Sonic Lab. Studies of contemporary composition at the University of Arts in Graz, Austria with diploma by Beat Furrer, completed by international projects and residencies. His concepts led to invitations to concerts, international conferences, performances, presentations and lectures in Europe, Asia, North and South America. Andreas Weixler is running Atelier Avant Austria together with Se-Lien Chuang.

Composer of orchestral, electroacoustic and chamber music, winner of several international and national awards like 2012 European Erasmus Electronic Music Competition-Universitè 8- Paris, Sonom 2012 Sound Art International Festival, Monterrey, Miriam Gideon Prize (USA), Trinac (Buenos Aires), Composition Prize for Music Theater (Milan Centro Musica Contemporanea)
PUBLICATIONS: record labels and on specialized journals like Editions Delatour France, Berben Ancona, Curci Milan, Neos Germany and others.
AFFILIATIONS: member of the Italian Society for Contemporary Music, former Faculty member Soundscape Festival and member of Agon Acustica Informatica Musica.
STUDIES: Master in Composition (Rosario Universidad Nacional), Electronic Music (Milan Conservatory), Sound Technologies and Composition (Parma Conservatory). Actually she is a PHD researcher at the Foggia Conservatorio (Italy). She was selected for the 2011 Music Biennial of Venice IRCAM Workshop, SaMPL Sound and Music Processing Project (Padua Conservatory), and 2019 stage at the GRAME (Center National de Creation Musical., Lyon)
ARTISTIC RESIDENCES, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts-USA, Gasteatelier Krone Studio in Switzerland, Italian Composers Forum (Contemporary Music Center-Milan
Festivals: Third European Saxophone Congress, 2024 New York Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2024 STEMS Festival , 2023 EMUFEST Sabina Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2019 Festival EviMus, Saarbrücker Tage für elektroakustische und visuelle Musik- Saarbrucken (Germany), 2018 Ars Electronics Forum Wallis (Switzerland), 2015-2014 Semaine Internationale de la Musique Electroacustique (Università 3, Lille, France), 2011-2013-2014 World New Music Days, 2017 Ciclo Internacional de Musica Laberintos Sonoros Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico, 2008 ICMC Belfast, 2012 ICMC Perth, 2018 Muslab (Mexico).
Monographic concerts: Ira-Arka, Infierno Musical and Liminal (Agon Production), Mirapunzel Electroacoustic Multimedia Tale

These Things Happen (or not) for marimba and electronics, is composed and dedicated to Jean Geoffroy in recognition of our collaboration that dates to before the pandemic and even back to the 1990’s at IRCAM! The piece explores several scenarios, at times giving room to the performer to make decisions and personalize the work. Jeremy Wagner at CNMAT designed a new system for displaying time called the Visual Metronome allowing for a variety of timekeeping and support for the performance. For the electronics, I designed a large ensemble of sampled instruments that are controlled by the CNMAT TimeWarp object created by John MacCallum. This piece was originally commissioned in 2021 by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. All materials, including score and Max patch are available freely for download at www.edmundcampion.com. The electronics for These Things Happen (or not) were created with my implementation of John MacCallum’s TimeWarp object. TimeWarp allows for the shaping of dynamic tempomaps that allow for distinct and smoothly altering tempi to be composed across time. This is essentially a new way to compose time and I have been working these past years to find ways to map synthesis and samples to these tempomaps. What appears as a sort of plasma of sound in the electronics is actually carefully crafted. What I love about the situation is that I am able to scale the time to any frame such that a revision of particular phrase is very easy to achieve, even with complicated electronics.

Edmund Campion (b. 1957) is a Professor of Music Composition and currently Co-Director at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) at the University of California, Berkeley. A recognized composer, performer, and collaborating artist for over 30 years, he continues to produce highly personal music that often mixes emerging technologies with acoustic instruments and electronic sounds. In February 2025, Campion’s Le Sillage(WAKE) premiered at Cal Performances with David Milnes and the ECO Ensemble, featuring improvising cellist Danielle DeGruttola, five instruments, and live electronics. In March 2025, The Voices of Silicon Valley premiered a new work for 12 voices at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in collaboration with poet John Campion. Throughout his career, Edmund Campion has collaborated with dedicated artists who share a desire to innovate. His long-standing partnership with digital artist Claudia Hart has produced the Alice Series and Recumulations, the latter in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum. Their collaborative projects continue to be showcased in major museums, galleries, online platforms, and AR/VR environments worldwide. Campion has received numerous accolades, including the American Rome Prize (1994), the Lili Boulanger Prize (1993), the Paul Fromm Award at Tanglewood (1992), and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship (2012) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Past commissions include Wavelike and Diverse (2011), written for Les Percussions de Strasbourg and featured on the ensemble’s 50th-anniversary Universal CD collection; Auditory Fiction (2011), commissioned by Société Générale for Radio France; Small Wonder (The Butterfly Effect) (2012), commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; and Auditory Fiction II (2014), composed for the ECO Ensemble and premiered at the Venice Music Biennale.

Shimmer-Submerged is a two-movement work featuring dance, transducer-activated Wurlitzer Student Butterfly Piano, processed Tremolo-Harp robotic string instrument, and electronic music. Shimmer features a dance where the performer slowly moves a variety of glass chimes across the stage. The performance explores the relationship between dancer and the various forms of sonic “shimmering” that are produced by the transducer and the Tremolo-Harp, a twelve-stringed robotic instrument, where each string is actuated with a DC vibration motor to produce a mechatronic “tremolo” effect. Submerged features dance accompanied by electronic music based on the recorded sounds of water. As the movement progresses the listener is taken from the surface into the abyss.

Steven Kemper is a composer, music technologist, and instrument designer. As a composer, Steven creates music for acoustic instruments, instruments and computers, musical robots, dance, and video. His compositions have been presented at numerous concerts and festivals around the world and his first solo album of electroacoustic music, Mythical Spaces, was released by Ravello Records in 2018. Steven is a co-founder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI), a collective dedicated to creating and composing music for robotic instruments. He also co-developed the RAKS (Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing) System, a wireless sensor interface designed specifically for belly dancers with composer and dancer Aurie Hsu. Steven’s research has been published in Leonardo, Leonardo Music Journal, Organised Sound, and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. Steven is currently Associate Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Two Unworkable Contraptions for amplified flute and electronics, is the result of a collaboration with instrumentalist and researcher Patricio de la Cuadra. The raw material for the electronic part comes from a physical model originally developed by de la Cuadra himself (who also performs the flute part in this concert). This computer model, initially conceived to study the acoustics of wind instruments, allows for the generation of sounds that convincingly simulate real instruments through the control of their physical parameters. It also enables the creation of “virtual” instruments that would exceed the limits of a human performer (for example, a performer with endless lung capacity), or the practical limits of instrument construction (such as simulating pipes of arbitrarily large dimensions). This tool offers the composer an infinite range of sounds and timbres, from those close to familiar instrumental sounds to others with a distinctly synthetic character, yet with great potential to blend together and to combine with the sounds of a live flute. This project was funded by the Office for the Arts and Culture of the Vice Presidency for Research, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Tomás Koljatic S. is a Chilean composer. After completing undergraduate degrees in music and mathematics in his home country, he continued his training in composition at the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP), where he studied under Frédéric Durieux (composition), Claude Ledoux (analysis), Denis Cohen (orchestration), and Luis Naón, Tom Mays, and Karim Haddad (music and technology). In parallel, he pursued further specialization in computer music at IRCAM (Cursus 1). He is currently a faculty member at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where he teaches music analysis and history.

Composer João Pedro Oliveira holds the Corwin Endowed Chair in Composition for the University of California at Santa Barbara. He studied organ performance, composition, and architecture in Lisbon. He completed a Ph.D. in Music at the University of New York at Stony Brook. His music includes opera, orchestral compositions, chamber music, electroacoustic music, and experimental video. He has received over 70 international prizes and awards for his works, including the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023, the Bourges Magisterium Prize, and the Giga-Hertz Special Award, among others. His music is played all over the world. He taught at Aveiro University (Portugal) and Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). His publications include several articles in journals and a book on 20th century music theory.

The Changing Light was written for violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon. Listening to her performances, compositions, and improvisations, I was inspired by the wide-ranging exploration of timbre, and her fluid movement between skittering, virtuosic, exploratory, and melodic playing.
The work derives its inspiration and its name from a poem of the same name by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The changing light at San Francisco
is none of your East Coast light
none of your
pearly light of Paris
The light of San Francisco
is a sea light
an island light
And the light of fog
blanketing the hills
drifting in at night
through the Golden Gate
to lie on the city at dawn
And then the halcyon late mornings
after the fog burns off
and the sun paints white houses
with the sea light of Greece
with sharp clean shadows
making the town look like
it had just been painted
But the wind comes up at four o’clock
sweeping the hills
And then the veil of light of early evening
And then another scrim
when the new night fog
floats in
And in that vale of light
the city drifts
anchorless upon the ocean

John Thompson‘s music uses sound and image as a vehicle for expressing the beauty and complexity of the world. His compositions over the last 10 years have focused on audiovisual works and works for instrument and electronics. John is Professor of Music Technology and Head of the Music Technology Program at the Fred and Dinah Gretsch School of Music at Georgia Southern University.

Whir (2018) —for alto flute and electronics— was written for flutist and musician extraordinaire, Sarah Brady. Like many of my recent works, the electronics are a combination of performer-triggered fixed-media and interactive live elements. The live and fixed-media components were realized using numerous sampled and designed sounds that were assembled in ProTools Max/MSP. The highly virtuosic work for the alto flute, the electronic “part” is designed to interact with the performer, at times, as an accompanimental cohort, and, at others, to augment the spatial, timbral and polyphonic possibilities of the live instrument. Many thanks to the wonderful Sarah Brady for work-shopping the piece during its development.

Derek Hurst is a composer writing acoustic and electroacoustic concert music. His work exhibits a balance between visceral solemnity and muscular jocularity, mixed with timbral subtlety. Both his acoustic and electronic works have been performed throughout the U.S. and abroad by ensembles such as: Boston Modern Orchestra Project, String Noise, Left Coast Ensemble, Ensemble Pamplemousse, Interensemble, Brave New Works, Ecce Ensemble; and prominent soloists: Ian Pace, Winston Choi, Geoffrey Burleson, Ashleigh Gordon, Sarah Brady et al, with works featured on concert events of: League-ISCM, SEAMUS, ICMC, Boston Cyberarts and the ComputerArts Festival. Mr. Hurst and his creative work have received several awards, honors and distinctions including: Fromm Foundation Commission, Jebediah Foundation Commission, MCC Artist’s Fellowship, the Wayne Peterson Prize, The Copland House Residency et al. As a new music advocate, he also has directed numerous concerts of new music and was Cohost for SEAMUS’ 2019 National Conference, which was held on the greater Berklee / BoCo campus. Derek is Professor of Composition at Berklee and teaches courses in composition, electronic music, theory, counterpoint & contemporary music. Mr. Hurst earned his PhD in Composition / Theory from Brandeis University. Major teachers include David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, Martin Boykan, Yehudi Wyner and John Melby. His dissertation on Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto (op. 42) is published by Verlag, D.M.

Twenty-Four is a collection of simple generative score-instruments that form a synthesised acoustic ecology: an ecosystem of sounds that the audience can join using their own devices. A QR code projected on screen invites participation, linking to patches that allow users to generate sound and become part of the composition and performance. These patches are available both as downloads and in-browser versions via WebPd. You can also access them at williamturnerduffin.com/twentyfour The piece is structured as a series of 24 interconnected musical cells that can be combined in any order for any duration. Each cell is a patch: a score-instrument that embodies sound synthesis processes, sequential memory, and chance operations. Together, they form a modular system in which structure, texture, and gesture emerge through layered relationships. This version of Twenty-Four is presented as a pre-recorded, processed and spatialised rendering for eight loudspeakers. Though the performance unfolds as a partially fixed audio experience, its modular and interactive nature remains active: access to its components allows audience members to explore, repurpose, or perform the material themselves, either during or after the concert. By treating software patches as reproducible and shareable compositional units, Twenty-Four proposes an open, participatory model for computer music performance: one in which the audience may become interpreters, collaborators, or composers as part of the event.

Will is a musician, producer, and instrument builder based in Bristol, UK. He holds a BA in Creative Music Technology from Bath Spa University and an MA in Sonic Arts from Middlesex University. He is currently undertaking a PhD in the School of Design at Bath Spa University.

Melody Slot Machine III: Automatic Fingering of Saxophone by using Servomotors is a dial with the staves of music displayed on the iPad, which can be rotated to change the melody variations. The melody variations are generated on the basis of the Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM) [1]. GTTM is used to analyze the musical structure to obtain a time-span tree. The melody variations in Melody Slot Machine, generated on the basis of GTTM, can be partially switched to another variation without any significant change in the overall structure of the time-span tree and no musical breakdown. The original Melody Slot Machine was built in 2018 for introducing a melody-generation method based on GTTM, with a marimba piece composed by Mizuki Kobayashi and vocal and soprano saxophone piece composed by Kyoko Otagawa. The marimba piece was generated using a GTTM-based morphing method with two pieces as input: Horn Concerto No. 1 by Mozart and “La Gioconda” Dance of the Hours by Ponchieli. In the vocal and soprano saxophone piece, however, the melody for the vocal part is a morphed melody using La Campanella composed by Liszt, while the soprano saxophone part is a morphed melody composed by Otagawa. In our exhibit at ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Emerging Technologies, we used the marimba piece [2]. Melody Slot Machine II, built in 2023, used a vocal and soprano saxophone piece [3]. Two iPads were used to control each melody of vocal and soprano saxophone, and AI was used to detect the direction of the user’s head on the basis of the facial image acquired with the iPad’s front camera, and the volume of the part facing the direction of the head was increased. This makes it easier for even music novices to hear the melody of the part they are operating. Melody Slot Machine III, which is being unveiled for the first time, uses a microcomputer and servomotor attached to the saxophone to automatically perform the fingering of melodies with varying variations. The microcomputer receives the MIDI note on signal output from Melody Slot Machine III, and moves the servomotor so that the fingering corresponds to the note number. The keys of saxophone and servomotors are connected by wires. When the servomotor is moved and a wire is pulled, the key moves and the tone hole closes.
[1] Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, MIT Press, 1985.
[2] Masatoshi Hamanaka et al., Melody Slot Machine, ACM SIGGRAPH 2019 Emerging Technologies ET-245, July-August 2019, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3305367.3327985, Laval Virtual Revolution Research Jury Prize.
[3] Masatoshi Hamanaka, Implementation of Melody Slot Machines, 30th International Conference on Multimedia Modeling (MMM2024), 2024, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-53302-0_18, Best Demonstration Award..

Masatoshi Hamanaka received a Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, in 2003. He is currently a leader of the Music Information Intelligence team at Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, RIKEN. His research interest is in music information technology and biomedical and unmanned aircraft systems. He received the Journal of New Music Research Distinguished Paper Award in 2005, SIGGRAPH2019 Emerging Technologies Laval Virtual Revolution Research Jury Prize in 2019, IJCAI-19 Most Entertaining Video Award in 2019, Augmented Human International Conference Best Poster Paper Award in 2021, and International Conference on Multimedia Modeling Best Demonstration Award in 2024.

Gou Koutaki received a Doctor of Engineering from Kumamoto University, Japan, in 2007. He joined the Production Engineering Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd., in 2007 and is currently a professor at Kumamoto University. His research interests include image processing and musical-instrument support systems.

Kyoko Otagawa received bachelor of music from Kyoto City University of Arts, Department of Composition. Her interests include providing music for broadcasting, events, and concerts, corporate music production, and sheet-music publishing and involved in mentoring the next generation of musicians at the Soai University Faculty of Music Department of Creative Performance and the Yamaha Music Foundation Creative Course.

Here…NOW This musical takeover of a space is an experiment in making the connections we construct with spaces aurally explicit. Original songs played by an ensemble of amplified instruments (drums, electric guitars, bass, vocals) are coupled with a system that the musicians use to modulate the amplification on their instruments, and exaggerate to different degrees the unique acoustic qualities of the venue, captured via processed impulse responses and measurements of the physical space. Here…NOW aims to make its participants aware of the connection performers and audiences find through live music, to link it to context and place, to express a fleeting moment and show the significance—in music and beyond—of the places we go and the people we are with.

Ana Schon is a Master’s student in Prof. Tod Machover’s Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she has been composing, recording, engineering, and performing music for as long as she can remember. Before MIT, she attended Berklee College of Music and received her degree in Songwriting in December 2022. She is half of the latin-indie-folk duo Borneo, as well as creator of a solo project of songs in English and Spanish. Her work has been featured in publications like Billboard Argentina, WERS, and the Boston Globe, and she has collaborated on sound production for major performances at Lincoln Center, Seoul Arts Center, Boston Symphony Hall, and the Venice Biennale, among others. At the Media Lab, Ana combines this music-tech experience with her interest in innovative, approachable, and adaptable technology to create visceral artistic experiences that connect people with the communities that surround them and the spaces they inhabit.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed The title of the piece comes from a nursery rhyme referenced in George Orwell’s book “1984”. Throughout the book the main character struggles to remember the poem’s ending, which is revealed to him at the key moment, right before he is captured: “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head”. This thread in the whole story resonated with me, as it touches on the volatility of one’s memory, with the backdrop of large-scale manipulation of recorded knowledge performed by the totalitarian regime in the book. While Orwell mostly deals with the memory that exists within humans and memory that’s written down, today we deal with omnipresence of recorded media of multiple sorts, particularly sounds, images, and videos. As we produce larger and larger amount of such records, not only through traditional books, audio records and movies, but also in social media, blogs, podcasts etc., I find it fascinating how we navigate this oversaturated space and how it is being transformed by both large-scale phenomena as well as targeted actions. In my piece I am seeking to explore these transformations by employing a machine learning model that embeds the memory of the piece. While being performed, the piece re-composes itself, as the model is being re-trained to embed new “memories” of the performance gestures. This work is supported by the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington, as well as eScience Institute with support from the Washington Research Foundation. The piece is realized in 3rd order Ambisonics spatial sound format and employs custom motion sensors developed by the composer.

Marcin Pączkowski (pronounced `marr-cheen pawnch-`koav-skee) is a composer, conductor, digital artist, and performer, working with both traditional and electronic media. As a composer, he is focused on developing new ways of creating and performing computer music. His pieces involving real-time gestural control using accelerometers have been performed worldwide, including International Computer Music Conference in Daegu, Korea, Music of Today concert series in Seattle, Washington, Northwest Percussion Festival in Ashland, Oregon, Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium in Toronto, Canada, and the Audio Art festival in Kraków, Poland. As the Music Director of Evergreen Community Orchestra, he presents concerts of diverse repertoire to local communities. He is also involved in performing new music and has led premieres of numerous works in Poland and the United States. His conducting performances with Inverted Space ensemble include Anahit by Giacinto Scelsi, featuring Luke Fitzpatrick on violin, Flurries by Brian Ferneyhough, and Hermetic Definition by Joël-François Durand. With an affinity for playing music with others, Marcin actively participates in the Seattle-area improvised music community, performing on various instruments. He received grants and commissions from the Seattle Symphony, eScience Institute, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and from Polish Institute of Music and Dance. He received his Ph.D. in Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. He also holds Masters’ degrees from the Academy of Music in Kraków, Poland, and from the University of Washington.

Gutai is a piece written as an exercise in self listening for the performer and an immersive listening experience for the audience. During the piece, the performer reads a graphic score, and sculpts an improvisation through it. Every musical choice you make has the potential to come back later through the electronics. It is the responsibility of the performer to always be listening and to respond to the decisions they made previously in the performance. Simultaneously, these captured bits of the improvisation will be played back by the speakers surrounding the audience, giving them an inside look at the creation of the improvisation and surrounding them with the pianist’s choices. The hope is that with each performance, the player will be able to understand themselves as an improvisor through coming to terms with the consequences of their own musical decisions and that the listeners can experience the creation of the work.

Austin Engelhardt is a composer and improviser whose work is dedicated to challenging and reshaping communication through music. Raised in rural Kansas, Austin came to the musical world later in life, only learning to read music at the age of 20. This late start did not hinder his passion; instead, it fueled a relentless ambition to redefine and expand musical notation. His artistic vision, deeply influenced by the aesthetic nature of sound, draws inspiration from the abstract. Austin earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and a master’s degree from The New England Conservatory. He has studied under esteemed teachers including John Mallia, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, Yotam Haber, and Michael Miller.

Parable of the Harmoniums In Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel The Sirens of Titan, Harmoniums are a race of small bat-like creatures that inhabit the caves of Mercury, subsisting on the sound waves emanating from each other’s calls to one another. The Harmoniums’ simple ecosystem is ultimately disrupted upon the arrival of the Martian war survivors Boaz and Unk, the former of whom introduces the Harmoniums to recorded music from Earth. While the Harmoniums derive great pleasure from the music, direct contact with the tape player causes them to shrivel and die from overexposure which happens in the book when Boaz leaves the cassette player unattended for a short period of time. Parable of the Harmoniums uses this moment in the book as a point of reflection on the negative impact of unchecked vice and excess consumption can have on a society and/or ecosystem. In Parable of the Harmoniums, the audio signal from the saxophone and guitar is manipulated through a series of loopers, live-generated sound, and audio effects that are distributed between the main stereo outputs and a series of transducers placed on the guitar. Interaction between the resonance of the guitar and the transducers creates an isolated sonic ecosystem that is reliant on input from the performers and electronics to exist, but is vulnerable to being erased by the same forces that allow it to exist in the first place. The works of Leo Brouwer and Heitor Villa-Lobos serve as inspiration for many of the techniques and chord shapes used in the guitar part, which are further corrupted by the introduction of simple dissonances in both the guitar and saxophone.

Monte Taylor (b. 1991) is a composer, sound artist, and audio engineer based in West Lafayette, IN, where he is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Purdue University’s Rueff School of Design, Art, and Performance. His compositions have been recognized though the KLANG! International Electroacoustic Composition Competition and the American Prize. In November 2024, he served as a Fulbright Specialist to Egypt. His works have been presented on conferences and festivals including Electronic Music Midwest, Novalis Festival, NYCEMF, SCI, SEAMUS, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, SPLICE Institute, TUTTI Festival, and Web Audio Conference by ensembles including Bent Frequency, Duo Tudor-Režić, Line Upon Line Percussion, [Switch~ Ensemble], and the University of Texas New Music Ensemble. He also creates interdisciplinary collaborative works involving disciplines including dance, theater, sculpture, and interactive video. Recent intermedia installations have been exhibited at CAMPGround25, Mid-America Theatre Conference, and Purdue University’s Ringel Gallery. He Holds a DMA in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, an MM in Composition from University of Miami, and an BM in Composition from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

Like the Sea Itself offers a musical meditation on the power and elemental nature of the sea. Born from a transatlantic collaboration between the composer, working remotely from England, and New York cellist Madeleine Shapiro over several months, the piece draws inspiration from the acclaimed poetry of Alice Oswald. As Oswald eloquently writes, “the sea has endless beginnings” and is “loose inquisitive fragile anxious.” Shapiro responded to lines from Oswald’s Sea Poem and to the composer’s North Sea field recordings from the Suffolk shore. Shapiro’s improvised performances in her New York apartment were recorded and shared, providing the basis for the fixed media, which draws on the energy and turbulence of both the cello and the sea. In this performance the cellist Oliver Katz offers her own free improvisation to the sonic fixed media landscape and to lines only she can hear of Oswald’s Sea Poem. The cello is extended further through live processing using Kyma Sound Design.

Since the 1980s, Tom Williams has composed music for acoustic and electroacoustic media. His music is available on the Kitchenware, TEM, Cuillin Sound, and Albany Record labels and has been performed at international festivals including ICMC, ACMC, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, SICM, Futura, and Sonorities. Other performances include SABRE (Zurich), CMMR (Sao Paulo), Music+Sound, and a recent broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show. He has received awards from ALEA III (Boston) and the Italian music medal “Città di Udine,” and was nominated for an Ivor Novello Composer Award in Sound Art for his cello and electronics piece ‘Dart’. His 2023 acousmatic work ‘Piano Trace’ won the Special Prize at the 4th Ise-Shima International Composition Competition. He has composed works for New York cellist Madeleine Shapiro, soprano Juliana Janes Yaffé, clarinettist Sarah Watts, percussionist Thierry Miroglio, and the Orchestra of the Swan. Tom Williams holds a doctorate in music composition from Boston University and is course director for the MA in Music Production at Coventry University.

a brief stroll through the smallest garden consists of the bass and sounds gathered from across the world, some by the composer, but the majority preciously gifted by people close to him. Composed for only the minimum amount of required human intervention, the piece begins with a seed that the composer plants with his instrument, but how it grows is up to the sounds themselves. Rich with aleatoric electronic processing, the composition sprouts from the initial material and slowly but surely finds its way towards the sun. During the course of the composition, but also beyond, the listener is invited to listen just a little more carefully to the sounds of the world around them.

Antonis Christou is a composer, bassist, and researcher in the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. His research centers around the design and creation of novel musical instruments and interfaces that allow for discovering, distorting, and tinkering with new sounds. Drawing from an eclectic set of musical influences ranging from classical to electronic, his music invites us to reimagine our relationship with sound through transformations and augmentations of seemingly familiar idioms, instrumentations, and forms.

Upwelling is a multimedia composition that weaves together the artist’s experiences with the transformative capabilities of digital technology. Since relocating to the Fox River Valley, 45 miles west of Chicago, in 2019, I have been captivated by the interplay of images and sounds, exploring their convergence in a digital realm through Max/MSP and TouchDesigner. Upwelling unfolds as a visual narrative, where footage I filmed along the river and during travels becomes dynamic texture material mapped onto geometric shapes. These visuals undergo various manipulations and interactions, creating a synthesis of the familiar and the abstract. The work also incorporates home movies I digitized for my parents, invoking a contemplative reflection on the passage of time and the individuals who have shaped my life. The audio composition is a sonic collage of field recordings, synthesized elements, and acoustic instruments. Improvised piano, guitar, violin, and drums are sampled to act as vessels for memory and emotion—symbols of missed opportunities, including a wish that I had spent more time learning to play them earlier in life. The audio is processed through a series of filters, allowing the intensity of distinct frequency bands to influence visual parameters. This dynamic relationship between sound and image produces a shifting tapestry of modulations and displacements, transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar. Upwelling contemplates the unpredictable nature of memory—how it can resurface randomly or be triggered by specific events, shaping our present experiences and influencing our identities, cultural values, and relationships. In this composition, the artist invites the audience to navigate the fluid boundaries between the tangible and the ephemeral, the past and the present, offering a poignant reflection on the interconnectedness of our memories and the profound role they play in shaping the human experience.

Salvatore Siriano is a Chicago-based composer, audiovisual artist, and educator exploring the intersection of sound, images, and nature through technology. His work combines field recordings, synthesis, acoustic instruments, and original video he captures along the Fox River and during his travels. Recent presentations of his audiovisual works include the Art Alive Festival (Portugal), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (South Korea), Performing Media Festival, WOCMAT Conference (Taiwan), Central Washington New Music Festival, Indianapolis Arts Center, Contemporary Venice (Italy), and New Music on the Bayou Festival. In collaboration with Chicago-based photographer Alice Hargrave, he created immersive sound collages for her exhibitions Sea Change at Aurora University and A Forest Shouting at Chicago’s ALMA Art. As a music educator, Siriano has presented workshops on equitable music education and technology for Illinois school districts and the Illinois Council for Exceptional Children. In summer 2024, he taught music at the Roi Et School for the Blind in Thailand in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy, Northern Illinois University, and Mahidol University. In 2023, he was named Outstanding Full-Time Faculty Member of the Year at Triton College, where he teaches music theory and technology to many first-generation college students like himself.

Coupling was first developed at the Spatial Music Workshop, hosted by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech’s Cube, in Blacksburg, VA. It was written for pianist Shannon Wettstein Sadler and percussionist Terry Vermillion as a complementary work for Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Kontakte, a seminal work of spatial music for piano, percussion, and 4-channel tape. In Coupling, the movement of individual sounds and their synthesis (and therefore our perception of their timbre) is coupled to the behavior of sound in the performance space using ecosystemic programming.

Scott L. Miller is an American composer best known for his electroacoustic chamber music and ecosystemic performance pieces. His music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition and the use of electronics, exploring performer/computer improvisation and re-imagining ancient compositional processes through the lens of 21st century technology. Inspired by the inner-workings of sound and the microscopic in the natural and mechanical worlds, his music is the product of hands-on experimentation and collaboration with musicians and performers from across the spectrum of styles. Miller’s ecosystemic works model the behavior of objects from the natural world in electronic sound, creating interactive sonic ecosystems. Ecosystemic pieces are the result of autonomous sounds competing with each other for sonic space. Individual sounds tend to find a balance, which can be upset by changes to the sonic landscape, such as the introduction of new sounds. Because of this, sonic ecosystems are intimately tied to the space they are presented in. With or without humans, repeat performances produce unique results each time—sometimes subtle, sometimes drastic—while maintaining a recognizable identity. Recordings of his music are available on New Focus Recordings, Innova, Ein Klang, and other labels; many of these recordings feature his long-time collaborators, the new music ensemble Zeitgeist (whose albums he also produces). His music is published by the American Composers Edition. Miller is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music and theory. He is Past-President (2014—18) of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS) and presently Director of SEAMUS Records.

Where Water Meets Memory During the summers of 2018 and 2019, I spent time at the Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center (Oyster, Virginia), recording sounds including oyster reefs. Since that experience, I have thought about my lifelong relationship to water: trips to the beach as a child, a fear of deep, dark water (thalassophobia), recent collaboration with environmental scientists researching sea life, and, of course, the rising of our oceans as a function of global warming. All of these experiences swirled around compositionally for a year or two, until I began working on this piece in earnest during the beginning of 2021, while holed up in Oberlin, Ohio during the COVID-19 pandemic. Creating this work, I challenged myself in several ways: to use a completely higher-order ambisonic workflow, to incorporate recorded or sampled instruments in each section, and to work in a number of different electroacoustic styles. The resulting work is for full 3D fifth-order higher order ambisonics, presented here as an octophonic decoding. Includes performance recordings of David Bowlin, violin, Kate Copeland, soprano, and Kevin William Davis, cello. This work has four sections: I. The Bay (Of Trains and Shorebirds) with solo violin. II. The Reef (Of Predator and Prey) with cello, piano, glockenspiel. III. The Ocean (The Lull of the Sirens) with soprano soloists, choir IV. The Deep (Beneath the Rain) with string quartet, orchestra.

Eli Stine is an internationally active media artist, software engineer, and educator. Projects that Stine has designed sound and written code for have been mentioned in the New York Times, USA Today, The Wire, The Economist, and on NPR, and have toured Europe, Asia, and India. Stine is an Assistant Professor of Computer Music & Digital Arts at Oberlin Conservatory in the Technology In Music And Related Arts program. Prior to that, Stine worked as a Software Engineer at Meta (formerly Facebook) Reality Labs Audio Research. Stine received Ph.D. and Masters degrees in Composition and Computer Technologies as a Jefferson Fellow at the University of Virginia and bachelor’s degrees in Technology In Music And Related Arts and Computer Science from Oberlin College and Conservatory. Stine’s work spans immersive electronic music, mixed reality story-telling, interactive multimedia experiences, and frequent collaboration between disciplines, artistic and otherwise. Stine’s sound design for the celebrated virtual reality installation VRWandlung, a VR adaptation of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, has been touring the world since 2018 with stops in over 50 cities in 35 countries. Stine’s work Where Water Meets Memory has been programmed internationally and was a finalist for the 2022 Métamorphoses International Acousmatic Composition Contest. Stine performed electronics on esteemed composer George Lewis’ 2021 album The Recombinant Trilogy, reviewed in the New York Times, on I Care If You Listen, in The Wire, and in Best of Bandcamp. Stine’s work has been released on New Focus Recordings, Ravello Records, Naxos Records, Musiques & Recherches’ Influx imprint, and SEAMUS Records.

Shadows’ Resonance is a live audio-visual composition for the Joy-Con controller. This piece intertwines the ancient sounds of traditional Chinese instruments, the GuQin and Xiao, with ML-based interactive technology. The performer uses the Joy-Con controller to dynamically manipulate both the sound and the visual elements, creating an immersive experience. Incorporating machine learning, the system learns and recognises the performer’s gestures to seamlessly switch between the two instruments and various performer techniques. This adds a layer of interaction and responsiveness, allowing for an enhancement of fluid and expressive performance. The visual component of Shadows’ Resonance begins with real-time fluid simulations, visually representing the music’s flow. As the composition progresses, these visuals and sounds evolve into abstract shapes and forms, symbolising a journey from illusion to enlightenment. Through the interplay of traditional sounds and cutting-edge visuals, Shadows’ Resonance explores themes of perception, reality, and transformation, creating a multi-sensory experience that is both reflective and transformative.

Hongshuo Fan is an interdisciplinary composer, new media artist, and creative programmer whose work bridges the realms of technology and art. With a Ph.D. in Electroacoustic Composition from the University of Manchester, Hongshuo creates immersive multimedia experiences that integrate acoustic instruments, live electronics, generative visuals, light, and body movements. Currently, as an Assistant Professor of Music Technology at Texas A&M University, Hongshuo’s work is deeply influenced by the fusion of traditional culture and cutting-edge technology. By leveraging tools like machine learning and artificial intelligence, he crafts innovative projects that challenge boundaries in contemporary art and music. Hongshuo’s diverse portfolio includes chamber music, live interactive electronics, installations, and audio-visual works. His creations have been showcased at esteemed international conferences and festivals, such as the International Computer Music Conference and the New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference. In addition, Hongshuo has been globally recognized for his achievements, including the International Computer Music Association Asia-Oceania Regional Award, 2nd Prize in the International Composition Contest for Acoustic Instrument and Sampo, and The Giga-Hertz Production Award.

fleeting experience is an electroacoustic fixed media piece.

The works of German composer Clemens von Reusner are characterised by purely electronically generated sounds and those found in special places and processed in the studio. The work on the sound itself, its arrangement and movement on individual paths in the virtual acoustic spaces of multi-channel loudspeaker configurations are at the centre of his compositional work. At the end of the 1980s, Clemens von Reusner developed the music software KANDINSKY MUSIC PAINTER, which uses graphic tool to generate musical structures via MIDI. He composes commissioned works for radio and festivals and repeatedly refers to contemporary and historical works from music, literature and the visual arts in his musical language. Clemens von Reusner is also active as a curator and reviewer and member of the jury at international festivals for electroacoustic music. His works have been awarded national and international prizes. 2023 he was nominated for the GEMA German Music Author’s Prize. 2024 he received the Thomas-Seelig-Fixed-Media Prize of the German Society for Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM) for his entire oeuvre. His compositions are performed at renowned international festivals for contemporary music in Asia, Europe, North and South America.

Taqism / The Humanity of Arabs In a time when it seems difficult for some even to concede the humanity of certain Arabs, this piece defiantly and gratefully draws from Arabic musical materials to imagine a better future. All electronic material is generated and controlled in real-time as detailed in the accompanying ICMC 2025 paper “Preparation for Improvisation with Oud and Interactive Electronics.” The instrument is the oud / العود, the fretless short-necked Arabic lute, indeed the origin and namesake of the “lute” (with the misunderstood definite article “al” / ال from “al oud” / “the oud” giving us the “L” in “lute”) and the tonal material and phrase organization draws from the Arabic maqam / مقام system. This piece premiered April 20, 2024 and is dedicated to all Arabs and all those who recognize their humanity.

Dr. Matthew Wright is a media systems designer, improvising composer/performer, computer music researcher, father of an energetic 8-year-old, and the Executive Director and acting Technical Director of Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). His computer music career began in 1990 as an undergraduate in a class from David Wessel at UC Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), where he joined the staff as a researcher from 1993-2008, before and during his CCRMA PhD. He later worked at the University of Victoria and UC Santa Barbara. His research has included real-time mapping of musical gestures to sound synthesis, helping develop and promote the Sound Description Interchange Format (SDIF) and Open Sound Control (OSC) standards, computer modeling of the perception of musical rhythm, and musical creation with technology in a live performance context. As a musician, he plays a variety of Middle Eastern and Afghan plucked lutes, Afro-Brazilian percussion, and computer-based instruments of his own design, in both traditional music contexts and experimental new works.

Noise to Signal uses noise, randomness, unintelligibility, and/or sound that is usually not wanted becoming tone and its transformation into orderliness and intelligibility as thematic material. These themes operate at several different levels. In Noise to Signal several Eurorack modules are used, but especially Mutable Instruments’ Plaits and Peaks modules.

Andrew Walters was born in Topeka, Kansas but spent most of beginning years in Farmington, Missouri. Dr. Walters has studied composition with Robert Chamberlain, Jan Bach, Robert Fleisher, William Brooks, Zack Browning, Erik Lund, and Paul Zonn and electronic music with James Phelps, Scott Wyatt, and James Beauchamp. His piece IN-EX is featured on the Music from SEAMUS, Volume Nine compact disk and his piece Pushing Buttons is featured on Music from SEAMUS, Volume Sixteen. Walters’s music has been performed at various conferences including Convergence 2022, Spark, Electronic Music Midwest, SEAMUS, ICMC, and the Electronic Juke Joint and was featured on BBC 3’s New Music Show. He is presently Professor of Music Theory and Technology at Commonwealth University–Mansfield in Mansfield, PA..

南柯一梦[A Southern Reverie] is a visual and auditory feast that combines guqin, pipa, and interactive visual imagery, using AI technology to create virtual instrument performances. The two respond to each other, comparing reality and dreams, and with the help of AI algorithms, unfolding a dreamlike picture. The virtual and real scenes are like opening a door, leading the listener into a dreamlike realm that is intoxicating.

Jing He is in Hubei, Wuhan, China. He graduated form Showa University of music (Japan). Now he is teaching composing at Wuhan Conservatory of music. His main research directions are AI music, algorithm composition, acoustic synthesizing and acousmatic music.

Broken Hourglass explores the transformation of sound through filtering, chaotic synthesis, and electromagnetic field recordings. Its sonic palette includes heavily processed acoustic textures, glitch-like bursts, and resonant harmonic material, all evolving within a dynamic spatial environment. The work unfolds as layers of filtered instrumental sounds interact with electromagnetic recordings captured on a train journey, gradually giving way to glitchy, unstable bursts generated by chaotic circuits. Over time, new rhythmic elements emerge, accelerating and shifting in texture, before culminating in a dense, immersive climax. The piece concludes with a fragmented decay, leaving behind traces of its earlier gestures. The title Broken Hourglass reflects the way time can feel distorted—rushing forward or slipping away unnoticed. Through granular textures, pulsing rhythms, and spectral transformations, the piece evokes a world where time fractures and dissolves, much like the hidden sounds it reveals.

Hector Bravo Benard – Originally from Mexico City, studied philosophy and music at the University of Victoria (Canada), and later at the Xenakis Centre (France), the Institute of Sonology and the Royal and Rotterdam Conservatories (Netherlands), the Autonomous National University of Mexico, the University of Washington’s DXARTS center (USA), and the University of Birmingham (UK). He writes sound-based music for acoustic instruments, live electronics, and fixed media, with a focus on timbral and spatial elements. His works have been presented internationally at events such as the ICMC, BEAST FEaST, SEAMUS, Gaudeamus, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Sonorities Belfast, Espacios Sonoros, ACMA, and the Kyma International Sound Symposium. Currently lives in the Netherlands, working as an independent artist and music software developer.

纸上”弹”兵 Fantasia on Battle Tactics is based on the story behind the Chinese idiom 纸上谈兵 which literally means to discuss battle tactics on paper. In this story Kuo, the son of a famous general, claims to have mastered the art of war through theoretical study. However, when he is called upon by King Zhao to fight against the Qin army, his lack of applied experience eventually leads to catastrophic defeat. The Chinese title of this piece is a pun on the original idiom created by replacing the word 谈with its homonym 弹 which means to play an instrument. This piece realizes Kuo’s story both by following the arc of the story’s narrative and by using samples of the story’s original text as well as samples of Peking opera percussion instruments. On a deeper level, since Wacom tablet is used as a form of paper in modern visual arts, its use in this piece closely mirrors the “paper” referred to in the text of the idiom. This piece comments on the idiom by realizing its performance through the interface of this modern sheet of paper.

Award winning composer Li Tao 李陶 was born and raised in Beijing, China and currently based in the U.S. working on her second Doctoral degree in Data-Driven Music Performance & Composition at the University of Oregon. The philosophy, literature, and spirituality of the ancient East play a formative role in the aesthetic of Tao’s work. Her music consists of vivid soundscapes, colorful timbres, and interdisciplinary elements that often lead her audiences on a multi-dimensional journey full of imagination. As an Asian female musician, Tao is devoted to promoting gender equity and cultural diversity through her music as well as through collaboration with other artists. Tao’s music has been performed at concerts and music festivals throughout the world including China, Japan, Korea, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, Ukraine, Brazil, and the U.S.A. Her primary interests include acoustic and electroacoustic composition, performance practices, and analysis of compositional techniques, aesthetics, and intercultural dialogues. For more information, please go to taolimusic.com.

Music for Immediate Ensemble This improvisational work is suspended between the re-mediatization of semantically intertwined input streams and gesture tracking. By combining several systems, we create an ensemble of devices and bodily actions in an entangled process of tracking, translating, and connecting. The instrument SynthVR (developed by 42tones) generates the core material. The first performer, immersed in the VR environment, casts live audio and video via WIFI to a second performer’s computer. There, the stream is disrupted and reanimated through a Max patch, an analog video mixer, and real-time Unreal Engine graphics controlled via osc messages. The second performer’s audio-visual interventions are driven by eye-tracking, making gaze itself a tool for media metamorphosis. The result of this chain of transformation is projected as single channel video. We aim to create in real time from the body to the virtual, from grin to sound, from glance to feedback.

Itzá García (b.1993, México) is a composer focused on time and togetherness in technology-mediated musical settings. Her music and research engage current transformations in acoustic instrumentation, from augmented instruments to the use of instrumental sound as training data. Her music has been performed by ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Yarn/Wire, Talea Ensemble, Ensamble CEPROMUSIC, PinkNoise, and Mise-En Ensemble, among others. She has received prizes and distinctions such as the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residence program, the ICST Artist Residency from the Zurich University of the Arts, the CONACYT Grant for Graduate Studies in Mexico 2018, and the Art Science Connect Fellowship for co-organizing the innovation:SOUND:technology series. She is currently based in New York City, pursuing a Ph.D. degree in composition at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Tobias Fandel, is a composer and visual artist working with acoustic instruments, video, and digital media, focusing on the aesthetical implications of digital culture. His interests include the reversibility of loss in the virtual, the physicality of computed materials, and various printing methods and technologies. In his recent projects he engages the friction between current and obsolete media technologies, investigating elusive qualities and sensory artifacts across different cultural sensitivities. He has previously collaborated with Ensemble Modern, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Meitar Ensemble, Ensemble Mise-En, Soyuz21, PinkNoise Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Reactive Ensemble among others. Tobias teaches Music at Baruch College and is currently pursuing a PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center under the guidance of Jason Eckardt, Jeff Nichols, Douglas Geers, and David Grubbs. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Birds Pianist Mary Hellmann finds that during her practice sessions at home, many birds will visit the open studio window. Although good musical company, there are some that will compete with the piano as they impressively display their melodic skills with increasing gusto. The result can be a somewhat chaotic but enjoyable cacophony. The electronic part of Birds was composed largely of recorded bird and piano sounds. Many composers have been inspired by birdsong. Homages to two such composers are included in the solo piano part. Stravinsky’s wren and Messian’s cardinal transcriptions appear briefly. Birds was written for Mary Hellmann.

Christopher Cook received the Doctor of Music degree from Indiana University where he served as assistant director of the Center for Electronic and Computer Music. He is a recipient of a Fromm Music Foundation commission from Harvard University and has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the Music Teachers National Association, and the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies. He has served as Composer-in-Residence at James Madison University, Amherst College, the University of Evansville, the Monroe County Community Schools Corporation (Indiana), and for the city of Somerset, Pennsylvania. His compositions are widely performed in university and festival settings including: June in Buffalo, Music of Our Time, the Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, The Society of Composers Inc., the Annual American Music Week (Sofia, Bulgaria), and the Utrecht Music Festival (The Netherlands). His Electro-acoustic works have been presented at numerous conferences and festivals including: the International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electro-acoustic Music in the United States, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Florida Electro-acoustic Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, and the InterMedia Manifold TechArt exhibit. He is Professor of Music at Chowan University.

Harmonic Turbulences This project presents Harmonic Turbulences, an electroacoustic composition for the T-Stick, a gestural controller developed at McGill University’s Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL). Coupled with a Frequency Modulation (FM) synthesis engine designed in the SuperCollider environment, the T-Stick functions as a digital musical instrument (DMI), enabling the performer to shape sounds in real time. FM synthesis was chosen as a classic and efficient method for producing rich and complex timbres and textures. Collaboration with IDMIL has provided valuable insight into the T-Stick’s capabilities, ensuring a stable and reliable performance setup. Particular attention was given to the mapping process, which defines the relationship between the interface and the sound source, to refine instrumental gestures. Performed on the T-Stick Sopranino, the predominant version currently available at IDMIL, Harmonic Turbulences unfolds as a continuously evolving synthetic soundscape, inspired by the contrasts between calm and stormy weather. The sonic textures undergo constant transformation, shifting from delicate nuances to powerful gusts, creating a dynamic and immersive auditory experience. This composition is part of an ongoing research project aimed at expanding the T-Stick’s repertoire and promoting its integration into contemporary music practice. By fostering engagement with DMIs among composers and performers, this work contributes to the continued development and longevity of these innovative instruments. This presentation is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT).

Gaël Moriceau is currently a master’s student in Music, specializing in composition and sound creation, at Université de Montréal (UdeM). With several years of experience in aerospace and mechanical engineering in France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, Gaël underwent a career transition in 2019, shifting towards sound design and electroacoustic composition. Having obtained a bachelor’s degree in digital music from UdeM in 2022, Gaël primarily explores the acousmatic genre in his compositions, aiming to immerse listeners in abstract and unknown sonic spaces. He employs both field recording and computer synthesis (Max/MSP, SuperCollider), as well as various spatialization techniques, to craft unique sound objects and textures. As an affiliate student at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music, Media, and Technology (CIRMMT), Gaël also collaborates with the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL) at McGill University, focusing on the development of playing techniques for digital musical instruments (DMI), particularly the T-Stick. His research centers on composing electroacoustic pieces for a small ensemble of T-Stick, with the goal of expanding their repertoire, encouraging usage among composers and performers, and ensuring their longevity. Contact : gael.moriceau.78@gmail.com

Air Sampling #007 – Air Guitar is a series of co-improvised performances in which a sound source is sampled and distributed in space in real time. In the first performance #001, Greg Beller uses instruments Sound Space, Spatial Trigger and Spatial Looper, to record and distribute Lin Chen’s voice and percussion throughout the stage space. Then he plays the samples in an improvised musical choreography, making with Lin Chen a duo improvisation. Interactive video made by Janina Lukow aKa Klara. In the second performance AirSampling #002, Greg Beller develops a new version of the SoundSpace using Virtual Reality, the SoundSpaceXR. He composed and performed several works, the vanishing mirror with an ensemble, The Fault with an ensemble, AirSampling #003 – Macht Macht Macht for voice and audience, Air Sampling #004 – Touching Spirits with a pianist, AirSampling #005 – Si Xu with a Guzheng player (ICMC2023) , AirSampling #006 – Hybrid with a pianist. For this seventh performance, Greg Beller and Kieran McAuliffe, at the e-Guitar, co-improvise a musical form that unfolds in an invisible architecture revealed by dance, generated by the spatial gaps of collective memory.

Dr. Greg Beller works as an artist, researcher, teacher and computer designer for the contemporary arts. Founder of the Synekine project, he invents new musical instruments combining sound and movement, which he uses in comprovisation situations with various performers or in computer-assisted composition, notably in his opera “The Fault”. At the ligeti center, while preparing a second doctorate on “Natural Interfaces for Computer Music”, he is a research assistant in the innovation-lab and teaches in the Multimedia Composition department at Hamburg’s HfMT University for Music and Drama. At the nexus of the arts and sciences at IRCAM, he has successively been a doctoral student working on generative models of expressivity and their applications to speech and music, a computer-aided music designer, director of the Research/Creation Interfaces department and product manager of the IRCAM Forum.

Kieran McAuliffe As an artist I wear a couple hats, from jazz guitarist to electronic experimenter to vocal composer. As a researcher, I leverage excellent computer/data science skills, and am highly interested in the use of probability distributions for the generation of sound material. I currently live in Hamburg, Germany where I work as a research associate at the Ligeti Center.

Let’s play together? A doppelgänger phenomenon has existed for centuries in mythology, literature, visual art, and later cinema and television. It is about the idea of a biologically unrelated but look-alike, or a double of a living person (usually considered evil version of the original). So far, I’ve never met one in my life. However, if I meet him one day, the first thing I will ask him (or them) would be: “Let’s play together?”

Alexey Logunov is a composer and pianist with a primary focus on contemporary and experimental music. His music explores textural density, timbral complexity, and fusion of acoustic and electronic sound worlds. He is inspired by a broad range of styles, from the emotional depth of late romanticism to dynamic energy of progressive rock and heavy metal. Alexey was born in Leningrad, Russia. He graduated in 2014 from Saint-Petersburg State Conservatory of Rimsky-Korsakov, where he studied composition with Vladimir Tsitovich and Gennady Banshchikov and was later assistant to Sergei Slonimsky. Logunov studied piano performance at Saint Petersburg Conservatory, mentored by Ekaterina Murina from 2016 to 2018. In 2020, he earned a Master of Music degree in Composition from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he studied with P. Q. Phan, Eugene O’Brien, and Tansy Davies. Logunov is now a doctoral student and recipient of a fellowship from the Composition Department at the Jacobs School. Logunov’s compositions have been performed at numerous festivals in Russia and internationally, including RED NOTE, Synesthesia Lab, Bang on a Can LOUD Weekend, Performing Media Festival 2024, SEAMUS@40, From Avantgarde to Present Days, Children’s Earth, Sound Ways, reMusik.org, Midwest Composers Symposium 2019. Alexey Logunov is a laureate of the IV International competition “Romanticism: sources and horizons” Franz Schubert’s in memoriam (2013, Moscow), II young composers competition “Siberia symphony” (2017, Krasnoyarsk), diplomat of XVI Open composers competition named after Andrey Petrov (2022, Saint-Petersburg). He is a winner of 2023 Georgina Joshi Composition Commission Award at Jacobs School of Music and a nominee for a 2024 American Academy of Arts and Letters music award. He was respectively a scholar of and a student of the X and XI International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky-city and a participant of 2023 and 2024 Splice Institute.

His Dreams, i. Iron Horses Composed for solo piano and fixed media, His Dreams, i. Iron Horses draws inspiration from Alexey Logunov’s surreal dream. The piece depicts the dreamscape he documented in his journal. In short, it recounts a journey aboard a train traversing from a desert landscape to a beach. Along the way, surreal events unfold, such as the transformation of the train into a horse and a snake escaping from its enclosure at a beachside serpent museum, preparing to attack humans.

Born in Guangdong, China, Zouning is a composer, electronic music improviser, and sound artist whose work draws inspiration from nature and noise. She is passionate about DIY electronics and enjoys field recording in the woods. Her music has been showcased across North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2024, her work has been featured in festivals such as The Espacios Sonoros in Argentina, NoiseFloor in Portugal, Klexoslab Workshop in Spain, MISE-EN Festival, Splice Festival & Institute, Cube Fest, IRCAM Forum Workshop, SEAMUS/Sweetwater at Charlottesville, Performing Media Festival as well as Electronic Music Midwest. In previous years, she was honored to be featured in festivals such as Musicacoustica Hangzhou Electronic Music Festival, CampGround, Turn Up, and New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. Zouning was named a finalist in the ASCAP/ SEAMUS Student Composer Commission Competition in 2021. Zouning is a first year PhD student at Northwestern University. She recently completed her master’s degree with double majors in electronic music composition and music theory at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She also served as an Associate Instructor of Music Theory and taught written and aural theory at undergraduate level.

Pazhvak Astaneh This work explores the delicate, sometimes imperceptible transitions we encounter when placed in new spaces—whether social or physical. These moments of adjustment often hold the potential for transformation, as new possibilities quietly take shape. In the piece, these ideas are expressed through the evolving relationship between space, material, and processing, creating a fluid sonic dialogue where shifts in spatial perception transform the behavior of both sound and its treatment.

Pedram Diba (b. 1993) is an Iranian-American composer whose work is defined by the creation and evolution of intricate relationships between various sonic elements. His music has been praised for its “powerful interaction and striking richness of components” (ResMusica, France) and described as “showing a deep sense of musical energy and great attention to the organicity and morphological profiles of sound” (Pierre Jodlowski). Diba’s works have been featured at festivals and conferences including SEAMUS, IRCAM Forum, Splice, and New Music Gathering, and performed at prominent venues such as the DiMenna Center in New York, Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS, Constellation Chicago, and Le Gesù in Montreal. Since 2019, Diba has been a member of the Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project, an international partnership that advances research and practice in timbre and orchestration through interdisciplinary collaboration. Within ACTOR, he has contributed to projects such as the CORE Ensemble Project, Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP), and Space As Timbre (SAT), exploring new ways to integrate technology, the spatial qualities of sound, and collaborative practices in contemporary music creation. He earned his B.M. in composition from the University of Oregon, where he was recognized as the Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar in Composition. Following this, he pursued his M.M. at McGill University under the mentorship of Philippe Leroux, supported by the Max Stern Fellowship in Music. His studies continued at IRCAM, where he completed the Cursus de composition et d’informatique musicale under the guidance of Pierre Jodlowski and Claudia Scroccaro. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. in composition and music technology at Northwestern University, working with Alex Mincek, Hans Thomalla, and Jay Alan Yim. ​ Diba’s music is published by BabelScores in both digital and printed formats.

Camouflage is a work for piano and live electronics. All of the electronics are created from sounds sampled and controlled in real-time by the piano and act as an extension of the instrument, creating a hybrid electro-acoustic entity. In the first section of the work, the computer responds to the piano attacks with rhythmic patterns built from processed versions of the chord that triggered the pattern. This gives the music a regular pulsing rhythm without resorting to a fixed track and allowing the performer control over the musical expression and flow. As the piece progresses, an underlying harmonic progression hinted at from the beginning, gradually becomes more prominent, enhanced by sustaining electronics, creating blurry impressionistic washes of color. As the piano moves increasingly towards an ecstatic outburst of Romanticism the electronics respond by becoming increasingly noisy and aggressive, eventually departing from the performer’s direct control, and attempting to suppress and hide the emotions displayed by the human performer.

The music of composer and multi-instrumentalist Dan VanHassel has been described as “energizing” (Wall Street Journal) and “an imaginative and rewarding soundscape” (SF Classical Voice). His compositions have been presented at top national and international music festivals including: the MATA Festival, Gaudeamus Festival, International Computer Music Conference, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Shanghai Conservatory Electronic Music Week, and the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, and by ensembles such as the Talea Ensemble, Splinter Reeds, Dinosaur Annex, and Transient Canvas. His work has received grants from Chamber Music America, the Barlow Endowment, the Boston Foundation, and New Music USA. Dan is the artistic director and electric guitarist of the Hinge Quartet and was a founding member of San Francisco’s Wild Rumpus (now Ninth Planet). Dan has studied composition at UC Berkeley, New England Conservatory, and Carnegie Mellon and is currently Assistant Professor of Composition at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

separación (separation) was written for saxophonist Daniel Keintzy. The title of the work refers to the separation that exists between the live saxophone part and the materials on the fixed media (notwithstanding the similarity in the materials found in both parts). This separation takes place in a very subtle manner as the performer is asked to interact in extremely controlled ways using slight variations in timbre and intonation as the basis for the interaction. As a result, separación is an extended study focusing on circular breathing and the minute control of timbre and intonation. The fixed media part for separación consists of materials which were requested by the composer and recorded by Daniel Keintzy. These materials were later processed and manipulated by the composer. The final fixed media part was created during the fall of 2000, at the Florida International University Music Technology Center. A version for English Horn was premiered by oboist Kyle Bruckmann in 2021.

Through more than 200 works for a wide range of performance genres, including works with and without electronics for orchestra, choir, soloists, and chamber ensembles, Orlando Jacinto García has established himself as an important figure in the contemporary classical/new music world. The distinctive character of his music has often been described as “time suspended sonic explorations,” qualities he developed from his studies with Morton Feldman, among others. Born in Havana, Cuba and residing in the US, he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including Rockefeller, Fulbright, Knight, Dutka, Civitella Ranieri, Bogliasco, and Cintas Foundations, State of Florida, MacDowell and Millay Colony, and Ariel, Noise International, Matiz Rangel, Nuevas Resonancias, Salvatore Martirano, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Bloch International Competitions. Garcia is the recipient of 5 Latin Grammy nominations in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition Category with recordings on New Albion, O.O. Discs, CRI /New World, Albany, North/South, CRS, Rugginenti, VDM, Capstone, Innova, CNMAS, Opus One, Telos, Toccata Classics, Metier/Divine Art, and New Focus. He is the founder and director of the NODUS Ensemble, the Miami Chapter of the ISCM, and the New Music Miami Festival. A dedicated educator, Garcia is Composer in Residence and Distinguished University Professor at Florida International University.

Union of Workers is a composition that explores the intersection between music and artificial intelligence. The piece is based on Louis Andriessen’s seminal “Worker’s Union;” I used Google Magenta’s engine to extend and morph between some of my favorite passages from the original work with various settings, creating over 10,000 measures that I then arranged and manipulated into a complete formal composition. The result is unique and dynamic music created through integrated intelligence that blurs the line between human performance and computation. The composition is written for any combination of New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIMEs) and can also be performed by acoustic instrumentalists who approach their instruments as NIMEs by using extended techniques. The original work only specified pitch contour and loudness, but my 21st century interpretation adds a concept of timbre to the score with notation for noisiness, brightness, or darkness. The instrumentalists must also find moments of punctuated equilibrium, the idea that evolution happens in short bursts of rapid change, separated by long periods of stability. This adds a layer of unpredictability to the performance. The piece was commissioned by and written for Ensemble Decipher and raises important questions about workers’ rights and the impact of mechanization on the labor force. The piece acknowledges the historical struggle of workers to achieve fair treatment and just compensation in the face of technological advances that threaten to make human labor obsolete. Through the use of AI, the composition draws attention to the ever-increasing role of machines in the workplace and the need for society to prioritize the well-being of workers as we navigate this rapidly changing landscape. Drawing from Andriessen’s legacy, “Union of Workers” becomes a powerful musical statement that combines artistic expression with social commentary, challenging audiences to think deeply about the intersection of art, technology, labor, and social justice.

Forging vital connections between classical music, audio data research, and innovative computational arts education Dr. Margaret Anne Schedel cultivates new possibilities at the boundaries where disciplines meet. Her diverse creative output includes multimedia operas, virtual reality experiences, sound art, video game scores, compositions for classical instruments with interactive electronics, and the development of custom interactive controllers. Honored with NIME’s Pamela Z Innovation Award, Schedel is set to release her solo CD, “Signal through the Flames,” in 2026. Her fascination with data sonification caught NPR’s Science Friday’s attention, where she showed how sound can unveil hidden patterns in everything from nanomaterials to the movement of people with Parkinson’s Disease. This same innovative spirit led her to co-found Lyrai, where she’s using AI to capture the acoustic essence of architectural spaces. She is a Professor of Music and core faculty of the Institute of Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University, and formerly served as the Chair of Art. Her research ventures into unexpected territory, from the meeting point of Hip-hop and electroacoustic music to the challenge of making technological art sustainable. As co-author of “Electronic Music” (Cambridge University Press) and regional editor of “Organised Sound,” she helps shape conversations about the future of music while nurturing the next generation of creators.

Oscillations (iii) is a cycle of three pieces inspired by Winterreise, the song cycle by Wilhelm Müller (text) and Franz Schubert (music). The work aims to reinterpret the emotional and philosophical essence of the original cycle within a contemporary context. In Winterreise, the protagonist is a young wanderer who embarks on a solitary journey after being abandoned by his beloved. Yet, the poetry extends far beyond personal grief, probing existential questions about human nature and the search for meaning. As the wanderer moves through a transient landscape, he speaks to himself without a narrator or intermediary, inviting the listener directly into his inner world. Oscillations (iii) offers a contemporary reimagining of the final song of Winterreise, Der Leiermann, in which the protagonist encounters a solitary beggar playing a hurdy-gurdy. Musically, the compositional process explores a custom tool I developed in collaboration, NeuralConstraints, which integrates a neural generative model as a heuristic rule within a musical constraint solver. At the same time, the original verses of Der Leiermann serve as catalysts for the evocation of imagined or remembered moments. I see this process as analogous to “prompting” a human mind rather than an LLM, where poetic language triggers a stream of associative memories and emotional responses. The hurdy-gurdy player is reimagined as a contemporary street musician—perhaps a refugee or someone surviving on welfare—whose ‘musical’ presence often provokes discomfort or rejection. Initially, the wanderer’s reaction mirrors this unease. However, through observation, introspection, self-awareness, and empathy, the narrator arrives at acceptance and embrace, recognizing the humanity of the Other.

I am an Argentinian experimental artist and researcher based in Bergen, Norway. Trained as a composer and pianist, I hold an interdisciplinary master’s in music and psychology and am currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Artistic Research at the University of Bergen. My artistic work explores human-computer interaction in art, drawing from computer-assisted composition, improvisation, artificial intelligence, algorithmic poetry, live electronics, and visuals. I have worked extensively in collaborative, interdisciplinary, and improvisational contexts, including with ensemble Azul 514 (Arg). Additionally, I have a background as a tango pianist and arranger, having toured internationally with the Argentine orchestra ‘Sanluistango’. My music has been performed internationally by ensembles and soloists such as Projecto RED (Arg), Schola Heidelberg (Ger), Quasar Quartet (Can), Edvard Grieg Kor (Nor), JÓR Quartet (Scand.), and Lucas Fels (Ger), among others. My works have received several awards, including first prize at the AI-based composition contest at the IEEE Big Data Conference (Washington D.C., 2024), and prizes from the Pas de Calais (France), ISCM-China, and various Argentinian institutions. I’ve received international grants from UNESCO-Aschberg, OEI/IBERÚSICAS, and the Morten Eide Pedersen Minnefond (Norway).

Sky Stairs is a meditation on intimacy, interiority, ritual, engagement, and release. In particular, it is a reflection on the loss of a loved one. For much of the piece, the musicians focus on coloring and shaping individual sounds, disrupted by intermittent interjections of more complex gestures. Multiphonic notes played by the clarinet act as a symbolic respiration, and other pitch content is largely derived from the frequencies contained in the multiphonics. The electronic part of the piece consists of software that allows the pianist to capture performed notes and extend them in time, giving the piano the ability to sustain notes roughly akin to how the clarinet and strings do so. The pianist sustains and colors these extended notes by performing with a foot controller and wireless handheld sensor. Although this piece is notated conventionally, it has been deliberately designed with a particular spareness of notation. This is in hopes to facilitate interpretation and nuance by the performers. While it is much more conventionally-presented than a composition by Pauline Oliveros, for instance, that spirit of group listening and interaction is a goal in this work.

Douglas Geers is a composer who uses technology in nearly all his works, whether in the compositional process, as part of their sonic realization, or both. He has created concert music, installation works, and several large multimedia theater works. He also performs as an improviser, playing laptop and his own custom electronic instruments. Reviewers have described Geers’ music as “glitchy… keening… scrabbling… contemplative” (New York Times), “kaleidoscopic” (Washington Post), “fascinating…virtuosic…beautifully eerie” (Montpelier Times-Argus), “Powerful” (Neue Zuericher Zietung), “arresting… extraordinarily gratifying” (TheaterScene.net), and have praised its “virtuosic exuberance” (Computer Music Journal) and “shimmering electronic textures” (Village Voice.) Geers is a Professor of Music at Brooklyn College, a campus of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he is Director of the Center for Computer Music and the MFA program in Sonic Arts. He also serves on the Ph.D. composition faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center. Geers completed his DMA in Music Composition at Columbia University, where he studied with Tristan Murail, Fred Lerdahl, Brad Garton, and Jonathan D. Kramer.