The lecture will take place in Tanna Schulich Hall (enter by level 2), followed by a catered reception in the lobby of the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building. This event is free and open to the general public.
Registration
No registration is required for this event.
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Abstract
Over the past decades, computational models of musical structures have been successfully developed in interdisciplinary research areas such as Music Information Retrieval, Mathematical Music Theory and Computational Musicology. These models contribute to decoding musical information for music analysis, retrieval, classification, recommendation and generation. In this talk, I discuss how the modelling process uncovers layers of implicit musical knowledge of experts and ordinary listeners and enables new forms of interaction with music. I will show how the modeling of music information enhances our understanding of how we make sense of music, and discuss the diversity of computional approaches required to address the rich variety in music’s structures. Moreover, I will show how we employ the gained insights on music as a fundamental human practice for facilitating novel forms of interactions employing technology, such as within serious games for music education, health, well-being and inclusion. I will reflect on the importance of the interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue between researchers in Music Information Retrieval, Musicology, Neuroscience, Game Design, and Music Therapy for the development of these interaction technologies.
Biography
Anja Volk is Professor of Music Information Computing at Utrecht University, and has a dual background in mathematics and musicology which she applies to cross-disciplinary approaches to music. Her work has helped bridge the gap between science and humanistic approaches to music while working in interdisciplinary research teams in Germany, the USA and the Netherlands. Her research comprises a broad spectrum of research questions from theoretical to technology-related issues, engaging areas such as Computational Music Analysis, Music Information Retrieval, Computational Musicology, Mathematical Music Theory, Music Cognition, and Music Technology for Health, Wellbeing and Inclusion. Her research aims at enhancing our understanding of music as a fundamental human trait by developing computational models for musical structures. She applies these insights to developing music technologies that offer new ways of interacting with music, such as in cultural heritage, digital musicology, music education and health applications. Anja has co-founded several international initiatives, most notably the International Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music (SMCM), the flagship journal of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (TISMIR), and the Women in MIR (WIMIR) mentoring program, which organizes yearly mentoring rounds with participants from academia and industry. She is also committed to connecting different research communities and providing interdisciplinary education for the next generation through the organization of international workshops, such as the Lorentz Center in Leiden workshops on music similarity (2015), computational ethnomusicology (2017) and music, computing, and health (2019).