Seaboard lab opened with London technology company, inventors of award-winning musical instruments for next generation of music creators

Above: three Electronic Music students experiment with the Seaboard RISE at the opening of the Seaboard Lab on October 28.

Guildhall School are delighted to announce the opening of ROLI’s first Seaboard Lab in its Electronic Music Department. The Lab will feature eight Seaboard RISE instruments in a dedicated studio, and the School will also establish a Seaboard Ensemble composed of Electronic Music students, to perform the first ensemble performance of Seaboards at the Barbican Centre.

ROLI is a London-based technology company that has invented award-winning musical instruments for the next generation of music creators – and this partnership with Guildhall is ideal for the School, helping us teach our students in some of the most cutting-edge, contemporary ways to make music.

The Seaboard Lab and Ensemble will give Guildhall School’s students access to the award-winning Seaboard RISE, a multidimensional MIDI controller that lets music-makers control and shape sound through five dimensions of touch. Playing on the Seaboard RISE’s elastic, sensor-embedded, continuous surface, musicians modulate sound in real time through intuitive finger movements including pressure, sideways motions along a keywave, and vertical motions up and down a keywave. Its touch-sensitive interface moves the Seaboard RISE several steps beyond the traditional keyboard, which offers only one dimension of touch – Strike – for controlling sound.

ROLI values the support of one of the world’s leading conservatoires as it continues to develop more expressive instruments that empower musical creativity. Guildhall School is unique among conservatoires in offering Electronic Music as a one-to-one Principal Study discipline. The launch of the Seaboard Lab confirms the Guildhall School’s place as a global leader of creative practice, promoting innovation, experimentation and research.

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