Seminar 23 – Augmented Improvisation: Between Instrumental Gestures and Generative System
Mikhail Malt (Ircam-STMS) – Researcher and Computer Musician
LI Li-Chin – sheng (Chinese mouth organ) Musician
LIAO Lin-Ni (TPMC-IReMus) - Moderator
This seminar presents an artistic research project that brings into dialogue two distinctive approaches to musical creation: Mikhail Malt - researcher, composer, and improviser using SoMax2 - and LI Li-Chin, performer on the sheng, the traditional Chinese mouth organ. Since early 2024, their collaboration has explored the conditions of improvisational performance between a traditional instrument and its digital partner, which analyzes musical gestures and interacts in real time.
SoMax2, developed by the Représentations Musicales team within the European project REACH, is based on models of musical analysis and generation capable of memorizing and recombining live sound sources. The system develops an active form of listening and proposes aesthetic responses, thus becoming a true partner in improvisation. Opposite it, the sheng - a millennia-old instrument with a rich spectrum, natural polyphony, and a uniquely gentle timbre - reveals a special affinity for this encounter within the realm of mixed music.
Throughout the seminar, the two musicians will present their analytical and artistic approach, focusing on:
1) The shared control between the performer and the computer musician through SoMax2,
2) The listening modes and playing strategies leading to synthesis and fusion in improvisation,
3) The ways in which this unprecedented musical encounter bridges the contemporaneity of tradition and today’s generative technologies.
Two live improvisation sessions at Salle Stravinsky will illustrate these exchanges, offering the audience a rare experience where tradition and innovation converge in a living and contemporary musical practice.
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This artistic research takes place at the intersection of three projects:
“Sheng! The Mouth Organ” Project, supported by IRCAM, IReMus, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, DRAC, and MMC;
REACH Project, supported by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 programme (Grant ERC-2019-ADG #883313);
MERCI Project, supported by the French National Research Agency (Grant ANR-19-CE33-0010) and IRCAM.
"sheng! Mouth Organ" Seminars are organized by TPMC - Tout Pour la Musique Contemporaine and IRCAM with support from: IReMus, Collegium Musicæ and DRAC Ile-de-France.
