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.
**CIRMMT Students wishing to have their attendance tracked for awards eligibility, please make sure to scan the QR code available at the entrance of Tanna Schulich Hall.
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Abstract
The intrinsic relationship between music and acoustic environment has been a cornerstone of compositional and musical performance practice for centuries. Composers and musicians have long exploited unique characteristics of performance spaces to mould musical expression and audience perception.
Methodologies for understanding acoustic spaces have improved markedly from early rudimentary techniques, characterizing concert halls via canon shot and stopwatch. Today, 'augmented audio reality' technology offers the capability to capture detailed acoustic data from any physical room, to construct virtual sound environments. This allows the digital "placing" a musical performer into any chosen acoustic space, irrespective of their physical location, offering new avenues for performance and analytical exploration.
Professor Jude Brereton will present learnings from Architexture, an ongoing interdisciplinary project exploring connections between architectural acoustics, musical performance, and audience engagement. The project centres on innovative methodologies including interactive auralisation, bespoke composition, and curated live events. She will outline approaches used to foster close collaboration with musicians and sound engineers, actively bridging understanding and cultural gaps between disciplines. She will also discuss future opportunities offered by the convergence of art and technology to encourage broader public engagement with our historical, present, and future intangible heritage.
Finally, she will reflect on her wider work, highlighting her commitment to interweaving interdisciplinarity, inclusive learning, and gender equality which has constantly shaped and reshaped her research and teaching.
Biography
Professor Jude Brereton is Professor of Audio and Music Technologies within the School of Arts and Creative Technologies at the University of York, UK. Her research portfolio is primarily centered on the analysis and perception of music performance within real, virtual, and augmented acoustic environments.
Notably, Professor Brereton designed and developed one of the first 'virtual acoustic musical performance systems' specifically tailored for the singing voice. Her scholarly interests are focussed on the critical role of spatial sound in enhancing both performer and listener experience and interaction, and the use of augmented audio reality to inspire and engage performers and audiences.
For over 20 years she has been active in seeking to improve inclusion and diversity in audio engineering and creative technologies education. From 2020-2024 she was Co-Director of the Screen Industries Growth Network (Research England) and is currently Co-Investigator of an £1.2M UKRI funded project to develop and evaluate co-created EDI interventions in Virtual Production.
She is dedicated to promoting inclusive engineering, through innovative, creative approaches to teaching, which are grounded in interdisciplinary research and sit at the boundary between arts and technology. She is active in promoting research-inspired music and theatre performance events combining art and science for public engagement and outreach.
Before beginning her academic career, she worked in arts and music administration, and still finds the greatest inspiration in collaborating with musicians, scientists and engineers who seek to work across and beyond disciplinary boundaries to gain a deeper understanding of our human relationship with sound and audio.