The laboratory is structured around seven teams that are defined by the formalisms and tools used, and three transversal themes that define the notions and objects studied.
This double structuring allows to anchor the research, its implementation and production modalities, both in the fields of excellence and the know-how (savoir-faire) of each team, but also to share musical problems in a cluster of inter- and multidisciplinary interactions between teams.
During the last five-year contract, the laboratory created two project-teams (S3, a transversal team between Analysis-Synthesis and Instrumental Acoustics, and MuTAnt, a joint team with INRIA) which have now ended but which have allowed the incubation of new themes and the anticipation of changes in the structure. The ERC CREAM project (led by Jean-Julien Aucouturier) has been integrated into the PDS team. The ERC project COSMOS (led by Elaine Chew) and the ERC project REACH (led by Gérard Assayag) are integrated into the RepMus team. Finally, there are two common service poles that meet the mechanical (POM) and electronic (PIP) manufacturing needs of the researchers and more broadly of Ircam.
The laboratory develops specific actions towards its privileged field of application, such as the artists' residency in the research teams, as well as the annual Forum, a meeting place between the research teams and the users of the tools produced by the laboratory, and the Méridiens days, a moment of exchange between composers, artists and researchers.
The laboratory collaborates closely with the other departments of Ircam:
IMR (innovation and means of research), which ensures the financial management of research contracts and provides Ircam supervision of the laboratory, in particular for development actions;
PAC (pedagogy and cultural action), which is responsible for the logistics of the ATIAM master's program, the management of the Cursus (international training program for composers), and the monitoring of art theses, a program created in 2013 that allows for a fine balance between artistic practice and theoretical approach on the one hand and research and creation on the other.
Creation: develops and produces artistic projects in the Ircam studios. Embodying a wide range of aesthetic and format diversity, from instrumental solo to orchestra, from installation to opera, from chamber music to recorded music, more than twenty creations mark each Parisian season, the annual ManiFeste festival and the major European events of multidisciplinary creation.