Cambridge, MA ... Leaders in interactive music systems will present their state-of-the-art, award-winning systems for computer-assisted composition, human-machine improvisation, and automated accompaniment. The half-day symposium, Interactions — humans • computers • music, will take place on Friday, April 25, 2008, at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 34 Concord Avenue, Cambridge. Admission is free, RSVPs requested at the symposium website — www-rcf.usc.edu/~mucoaco/Radcliffe/interactions-humans.computers.music .

The program juxtaposes four unique viewpoints on interactive music systems, all of which are centered on music, its performance and composition/improvisation:

Gérard Assayag will present the OMax human-machine improvisation system that learns from musician input. OMax has been used in performances with renowned improvisers such as Bernard Lubat and Mike Garson. Assayag is head of the Music Representation Research Group at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) and Directeur de Recherches associé with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. He developed the first IRCAM environment for score-oriented Computer Assisted Composition, and later created, with Carlos Agon, the OpenMusic environment which is currently used by composers and musicologists around the world.

Morwaread (Mary) Farbood will showcase her Hyperscore system for computer-assisted composition that allows users to create music by drawing. Hyperscore has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City, the Casa-di-Musica in Portugal, and Haus der Musik in Vienna. Farbood is a professor of music technology at New York University, CTO of Hyperscore, and an award-winning harpsichordist. She was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award in 2006 and won First Prize at the Prague International Harpsichord Competition in 2005. She has given solo recitals, including a New York debut at Carnegie Hall. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard, where she studied music and computer science, and earned her Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab, after spending two years as a Ph.D. student in composition and theory at Brandeis.

Christopher Raphael will describe and demonstrate his Music-Plus-One automatic accompaniment system that is capable of following the soloist's expressive nuances. MPO has been featured on Go Digital on the BBC World Service radio program, ABC news, the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Discover Magazine, Science Update, and New Scientist Magazine, etc. Raphael heads the Music Informatics program at Indiana University's School of Informatics, and holds adjunct appointments in the Jacobs School of Music, Cognitive Science, and Statistics. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Brown University in 1991. A former professional oboist, he won the San Francisco Young Artist competition and soloed with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 17, played principal oboe in the Santa Cruz Symphony, and was a fellow at Tanglewood.

Hans Tutschku, will take a critical look at the use of electronics in compositions. Tutschku is the winner of many international composition competitions, among others: Bourges, CIMESP Sao Paulo, Hanns Eisler price, Prix Ars Electronica, Prix Noroit and Prix Musica Nova. In 2005 he received the Weimar culture prize. Tutschku is a professor of composition and director of the electroacoustic studios at Harvard University. He has taught electroacoustic composition at IRCAM, the conservatory of Montbéliard, and in Weimar; he was the 2003 Edgar Varèse Gast Professor at the TU Berlin. He has studied electroacoustic composition at the college of music Dresde, at the royal conservatoire in The Hague, at IRCAM, and with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough; he completed his Ph.D. with Professor Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham. He has been a member of the "Ensemble for intuitive music Weimar" since 1982, and participated in several of Karlheinz Stockhausen's concert cycles since 1989.