MusPerfTec - Fostering innovation in musical performance research through the study and development of technologic interfaces

MusPerfTec - Fostering innovation in musical performance research through the study and development of technologic interfaces

What did this initiative focus on?

The initiative “Fostering innovation in musical performance research through the study and development of technologic interfaces” addressed, through a research perspective, the interaction between musical performance and artificial intelligence (AI).

Technology can expand creative approaches in musical practices, but the complexity of interfaces is often only mastered by specialists.

This project involved three of the most important institutions in the areas of musical technology and performance research in Portugal and Norway: the University of Aveiro (UA), the Porto Polytechnic School of Music (and its Superior School of Music and the Performing Arts – ESMAE), and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

This partnership implemented a forum of discussion and collaboration addressing the development and testing of technological applications and expressive AI augmentations of performance, which, contrarily to resources developed by the music industry, will be freely available to professional and amateur musicians.

Work meetings have been held between November 2019 and November 2021 in Aveiro, Porto, and Trondheim, and these visits have included workshops and lectures for students from UA, ESMAE and NTNU.

The apps tested by the team during their joint work sessions have been presented at the “The Sound of Feedback, The Idea of Feedback in Sound” conference at Canterbury Christchurch University (UK), in January 2020, and at the Internacional Conference on Live Interfaces, in March 2020, in Trondheim, leading to the publication of an article by team members in the conference’s proceedings.