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NIME 2012

The Twelfth International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression was held 21-23 May 2012. The conference brought an international group of researchers, composers, musicians, and instrument builders to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Ann Arbor has historical significance to the computer music community, as the birthplace of pioneering early work by composers Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, David Tudor, Alvin Lucier, and David Behrman.

The conference began with a day of workshops on haptics, machine learning for gesture analysis, application development for Apple's iOS mobile devices, actuated acoustic instruments, and soft circuitry and synthesizers. David Wessel of the University of California, Berkeley, delivered the first keynote address, "Composing Instruments That We Can Touch." David Huron of The Ohio State University delivered the second keynote address, "Sound in Action."

The single-track conference included nine paper sessions on topics such as augmented instruments, hardware and software toolkits, tabletop and multi-touch interfaces, laptop ensembles, machine learning, music-making with mobile devices, and gestural interaction. Other works were presented in installations and poster sessions. Demo sessions enabled many conference-goers to engage in hands-on interaction with new musical technologies.

Three evening concerts and two late-night concerts featured music involving new hardware controllers, augmented and electronic instruments, robotically actuated instruments, mobile phones, synthesizers, and music driven by gesture and biosignals. The conference also included an overnight performance of Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds, a piece by Gascia Ouzounian, R. Benjamin Knapp, Eric Lyon, and R. Luke DuBois in which sound and visuals are driven by the brain waves of four sleeping performers.

Web: www.eecs.umich.edu/nime2012

JIM 2012 Conference and Awards

The Journées d'Informatique Musicale (JIM) conference was held 9-11 May 2012 at the Institut Numediart of the Université de Mons in Mons, Belgium. JIM is an annual event focusing on the intersections between computation and musical analysis, performance, and composition. This year's theme was "Geste, virtuosités et nouveaux media" [Gesture, Virtuosity, and New Media].

JIM 2012 events included talks, computer-programming workshops, posters, demos, and concerts. The paper sessions included presentations on topics such as programming languages and systems, computational musicology, musical interfaces, computer-assisted composition, musical signal analysis, and performance tools. The conference also included a workshop to introduce young children to circuit bending.

Each year, JIM awards a Young Researcher Prize to a current student or recent graduate. The prize this year was awarded to Andrea Agostini and Daniele Ghisi for their paper "Gestures, Events, and Symbols in the BACH Environment," which they presented at the conference. The LoMUS Prize, which recognizes significant open-source software for music and audio, was also awarded at the conference. The 2012 LoMUS prizewinner was LilyPond, a free and open-source music engraving application.

Web: www.jim2012.be

SLEO

The Symposium on Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras (SLEO) was held 15-17 April 2012 at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (see Figure 1). The first event of its kind, SLEO provided a forum for discussion and performances by researchers and musicians involved in collaborative music-making with laptops and mobile devices. The event began with a day of workshops on the urMus mobile music environment, electronics and gadget hacking, the GRENDL resource management software for laptop orchestras, and "Choirs of the Future." The next two days featured paper presentations, panels, poster sessions, and concerts. Presentation topics included the use of laptop ensembles in education, instrument design, adapting electroacoustic repertoire for laptop ensembles, improvisation, and networking techniques. Several presentations were devoted to composers discussing their own compositions performed at the conference. Ge Wang of Stanford University and Smule, Inc., delivered the keynote address, "Ten Past and Future Lessons of Laptop Orchestra."

SLEO's evening concerts featured live performances by Louisiana State University's Laptop Orchestra of Louisiana, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University's Linux Laptop Orchestra, Princeton University's Sideband, and the European Bridges Ensemble. The Mobile Performance Group of Stetson University performed at the event's opening reception. In addition to playing works by their own members, these ensembles selected and performed compositions that other composers had submitted in response to the symposium...