- Announcements
International Computer Music Conference, 5–9 September 2005, Barcelona
The annual International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) is the preeminent scholarly gathering of computer music practitioners from around the world. Its interleaving of professional paper presentations and concerts of new computer music compositions creates a vital synthesis of science, technology, and art. This year it will be held in Barcelona, Spain, 5–9 September 2005, under the auspices of l'Institut Universitari de l'Audiovisual (IUA) of Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Phonos Foundation, and l'Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC). The General Chair is Andrés Lewin-Richter of Phonos, and the Program Chair is Xavier Serra of the Music Technology Group, IUA/UPF. Conference venues will include ESMUC, L'Auditori, Metrònom, Jaume I, and the França building.
The conference organizers have chosen the theme "Free Sound." By this theme, they write, "we aim to emphasise the idea of freeing sound from its current aesthetic, technical, and legal confines. We wish to promote an open discussion on the extent to which sound is considered a community asset—an asset that belongs to society and cannot be privatized."
As usual for this conference, there will be daily concerts of electroacoustic music, video, and sound installations. A variety of instrumental ensembles will perform. On the technical front, there will be papers and posters examining aesthetic, compositional, educational, musicological, scientific, and technological aspects of computer music and digital audio. Paper topics will include digital audio signal processing, sound synthesis and analysis, music analysis, music information retrieval, representation and models for computer music, artificial intelligence and music, languages for computer music, printing and optical recognition of music, mathematical music theory, psychoacoustics, music perception and cognition, acoustics of music, aesthetics, philosophy and criticism of music, history of electroacoustic music, computer systems in music education, composition systems and techniques, interactive performance systems, software and hardware systems, general and miscellaneous issues in computer music, and studio reports. An exhibition space will be available for research organizations and companies to demonstrate their projects.
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In addition to the usual calls for papers, posters, and compositions, the conference organizers have issued a "call for inspirational ideas." The concept is to provide a venue where researchers or composers can offer a preliminary, original idea on any aspect related to computer music, and other people can react to it and give suggestions. The ideas can be musical, technical, scientific, theoretical, or practical; no proofs, results, or developed systems are required.
The conference will start on Sunday 5 September with workshops and an opening concert. In addition to daily paper, poster, demonstration, and panel sessions, there will be midday and evening concerts each day; "Off-ICMC" events at nightclubs, galleries, etc., each night from Monday through Saturday; a keynote address on Tuesday afternoon; and the International Computer Music Association banquet on Thursday.
The deadline for discounted "early bird" registration is 21 June 2005; later registration is available at the normal fee. Additionally, 21 June is also the deadline for camera-ready papers. Further information and program updates can be found at www.icmc2005.org/.
ISMIR 2005, 11–15 September 2005, London
The Sixth International Conference on Music Information Retrieval will be held at Queen Mary, University of London, from Sunday 11 September to Thursday 15 September 2005. This annual conference (abbreviated ISMIR, after its original name as a symposium) is the established international forum for those working on accessing digital musical materials. It reflects the tremendous recent growth of music-related data available and the consequent need to search within it in order to retrieve and use music and musical information efficiently and effectively. These concerns are of interest to education, academia, entertainment, and industry. ISMIR therefore aims to provide a place for the exchange of news, issues, and results, by bringing together researchers and developers, educators and librarians, and students and professional users, working in fields that contribute to this multidisciplinary domain, to present original theoretical or practical work. It also serves as a discussion forum, provides introductory and in-depth information in specific domains, and showcases current products.
ISMIR 2005 topics include, but are not limited to: music libraries...