Music touches everyone, and
MIRES
project organisers say the Music Tech Fest is galvanising the world of
music technology, drawing global recording labels and high-tech
companies, start-ups and innovative SMEs, new and established
performers, young innovators and hackers, designers and academics.
‘The field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) has tended to centre
on the analysis of sound signal, for the purpose of more efficient
search and faster access to digital collections of recorded music,’
explains
Michela Magas , coordinator of MIRES project and founder of Music Tech Fest.
Magas says the advent of web-based social networks has created a
dynamic global market for digital music, collateral services and new
user behaviour, with significant challenges and opportunities for
commercial exploitation.
‘Our aim was to create an EU Roadmap for Music Information
Research,’ she says, ‘to address major challenges, formulate research
evaluation standards for the discipline, and open the field to
cross-disciplinary collaboration.’
Workshops were to be a part of the project, allowing a meeting of
minds between artists and scientists, industry and academia. The end
result was a ‘festival of music ideas’, a creative platform for the free
exchange of ideas, without jargon from individual fields of activity.
As soon as Music Tech Fest had a website, interest exploded. ‘The
numbers of participants grew daily, and we soon realised that our budget
was too low,’ Magas says. ‘So we got matching funding from the
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and my company,
Stromatolite
, invested substantially in the event.’ The MIRES project, which was
completed in March 2013, had also received EUR 573 000 of funding under
the EU’s
Framework Programme 7 (FP7).
Unprecedented success for an EU project
The Music Tech Fest was launched in London in 2012, uniting major
players like Soundcloud, Spotify, Shazam, EMI Music and the BBC,
innovative labels like Ninja Tune and Warp, tech media like WIRED, great
performers and a large number of innovative startups.
‘In 2014 we are going global,’ says Magas, ‘from Wellington to
Boston, Berlin, Paris and New York.’ The flagship event in London is now
part of the official autumn season of the Barbican LSO St Luke's, in
partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra, and in 2015 the festival
will come to the brilliant Umeå campus in Scandinavia, and to São
Paulo, Los Angeles and Amsterdam.
While the astounding triumph of Music Tech Fest has been an
unexpected result the MIRES initiative, the original goal of creating a
European Roadmap
has also been successfully achieved. ‘The final roadmap document has
had a notable impact on the global MIR research community,’ she says,
’contributing to the establishment of music production and digital
library management standards.’ It has laid also out a framework for an
MIR excellence network, involving drivers and stakeholders in the field.
Some of the activities being promoted by MIRES might sound rather
abstract and academic, but there is really much more at stake. The Music
Tech Fest academic community has launched the ‘Manifesto for Music
Technology Research’, highlighting the importance of these activities
for all citizens and fields of study, and intellectual property policy
debates.
‘The intersection of music and technology profoundly impacts upon
the well-being, culture and creative experience of all citizens,’ Magas
says, ‘while Music Tech Fest’s wide reach enables us to encourage new
economic directions, new business models and new venture ideas.’
The project gathered 7 partners from 5 countries,
MTG ,
STROMATOLITE ,
OFAI ,
INESCP ,
IRCAM ,
C4DM and
BMAT .
Link to project on CORDISLink to project's website