A meeting of musical minds – workshop on performance, creativity, and AI – took place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama on Sunday, 30 and Monday, 31 March 2025. Organised by composer Oded Ben-Tal, who performs with pianist David Dolan who improvises in the classical style in The Odd Couple – Human & AI Making Music in the Moment. Elaine Chew was among the speakers providing broader context of music AI research. The description and schedule are reproduced below:
A meeting of musical minds – workshop on performance, creativity, and AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently transforming our society and has opened up completely new avenues in many research fields, including music. Music AI research has focused mainly on the generation of music material – mostly in the context of composition. This overlooks a central aspect about music – music making entails multiple dialogues: between performer and audience; between performers as they play together; between composer and performers. While sonic materials are the primary component in these dialogues, gestures, facial expression, breathing patterns and other subtle forms of communication are also important. Since 2022 Composer Oded Ben-Tal and pianist David Dolan have been developing an artistic-research project which puts musical dialogues between human and an Artificial ‘Intelligence’ at its heart. Live, real-time, unconstrained improvisation based on mutual listening between Dolan and a system Ben-Tal is developing.
Based on this work, In 2024 Ben-Tal joined with Dr. Örjan de Manzano (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics) to further develop this research with funding from the Volkswagen Foundation: “Creative musical dialogues between human and machine: a novel approach to studying improvisation and joint action”. Their aim is to open up new avenues of investigating musical dialogues through the prism of real-time human-computer improvisation. As part of this project we are convening a mini-conference to share our findings within a wider research and creative contexts, including both current and potential future paths. We aim to explore questions such as: understanding joint creative actions and how AI can better support human creativity; understanding the relationship between internal creative processes and their outcomes; offering new insights into long-standing questions about how music is created, expressed and shaped in real time; investigating the integration of AI technology into realms that were deemed until very recently the preserve of humans.
SCHEDULE
Day 1: Sunday 30 March 2025
1-1.30pm – Registration & Tea/Coffee
1.30-2.30pm – Creative musical dialogues between human and machine: Dr. Örjan de Manzano and Dr. Oded Ben-Tal
2.30-3:15pm – Coffee break
3:15-4:45pm – Creativity in Performance: Prof. Elaine Chew and Prof. David Dolan
4:45-6:15pm – Wine Reception
6:15-8:15pm – Concert and discussion: ‘The Odd Couple – Human & AI Making Music in the Moment’
Day 2: Monday 31 March 2025
9.30-10am – Registration & Tea/Coffee
10am-12.30pm – Creative dialogues with technology: Gerard Assayag and Prof. Arthur I. Miller. In the second half of this session, they will be joined by Prof. Elaine Chew, Dr. Grace Leslie and Dr. Toby Young for a panel discussion.
12.30-2pm – Lunch
2-3:30pm – Music as creative communication: Prof. Ophelia Deroy and Dr. Grace Leslie
3:30-4:30pm – Coffee break
4:30-6pm – Roundtable discussion with Prof. John Sloboda, Prof. Ophelia Deroy, Dr. Örjan de Manzano, Prof. Fredrik Ullén and Dr. Oded Ben-Tal
