Machine learning has been making headlines with its sometimes alarming progress in skills previously thought to be the preserve of the human. Now these artificial things are “composing” music. This event, part concert part talk, aims to demystify machine learning for music.

At the event you will learn we can make computers teach themselves about specific musical styles and then can use them to create new music. You will go behind the scenes of these systems, and see how they can be tools for augmenting human creativity, not replacing it. You will hear human musicians play several works composed by and with such systems, and learn exactly what the computer contributed to each one. The programme of the evening includes the following:

• Richard Salmon plays artificial Bach chorales on the St. Dunstan organ
• Daren Banarsë, Eimear Mcgeown, and Nigel Stevens play three sets of traditional Irish music combined with computer-generated tunes
• Luca Turcet plays computer-generated tunes on his “augmented mandolin”
• Ensemble x.y plays “Bastard Tunes”, a composition co-created by Oded Ben-Tal and computer
• Ensemble x.y plays “Two short pieces and an interlude”, a composition co-created by Bob L. Sturm and computer