MeshUp #6 – Dániel Péter Biró
Dániel Péter Biró will present a short lecture on the topic The Intellect of Sound: On Understanding and Translating Musical Parameters.
Abstract
Over the last 15 years I have worked in the field of computational ethnomusicology with a concentration on chant transmission, focusing on Jewish and Islamic chant practices. Simultaneously, I have been creating a body of electroacoustic compositions where the use of musical parameters has become central to the compositional research. My ethnomusicological research has consisted of fieldwork, collecting audio recordings of recitation, creating symbolic transcriptions from these and archival recordings, concentrating on feature extraction and the creation of new kinds of computational and manual annotations via machine learning. Integrating ethnographic considerations within transcription practices, this work has combined data analysis, automatic and manual annotations and socio-cultural analysis. This computational ethnomusicology research has greatly influenced my compositional praxis, especially the understanding of musical parameters and how these exist and interact within a given music composition, allowing me to create a series of electroacoustic works where a given musical parameter becomes translated into another parametrical domain. In this talk, I will discuss this research, the computational analysis of musical parameters and their translation within electroacoustic frameworks. Following this, I will consider the further ramifications for parameter-based ethnomusicological and compositional research and how our understanding and use of musical parameters might evolve further in the age of AI.
Bio
Dániel Péter Biró is Professor for Composition at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen. Prof. Biró studied in the U.S., Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Israel before receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2004. From 2004–2009 he was Assistant Professor and from 2009–2018 Associate Professor for Composition and Music Theory at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC, Canada. In 2010 he received the Gigahertz Production Prize from the ZKM-Center for Art and Media. In 2011 he was Visiting Professor at Utrecht University and in 2014–2015 Research Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. In 2015 he was elected to the College of New Scholars, Scientists and Artists of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2017 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Dániel Péter Biró has been commissioned by prominent musicians, ensembles and festivals and his compositions are performed around the world. He was leader of the research project Sounding Philosophy, funded by the Norwegian Artistic Research Program (2021-2025).
Access
MishMash MeetUps are short, informal meetings in the consortium where both early career and established researchers present ongoing projects. The events are open for everyone, but, for security reasons, Zoom links are only provided to people that are affiliated with a MishMash Work Package. If not, please ask for access.