The long-awaited professional mix of Boulez Reloaded from Improtech@Paris, Concert #2 at Espace de Projection, Ircam, on 5 December 2025 is now released!
Elaine Chew piano
Thierry Miroglio percussions
Gérard Assayag AI-Agents Somax2
December 5 2025
IMPROTECH CONCERT #2 at Espace de Projection, Ircam
Boulez Reloaded Conceived in homage to Pierre Boulez on his centennial celebrated worldwide, “Boulez Reloaded” is a musical trio that brings to the live stage human-AI cocreativity and skilled human improvisers. An open, semi-improvised dialog between multiple confronting music streams will draw material from the rich musical history that shaped Boulez and his music. Elaine Chew will perform, adapt, and improvise on excerpts of pieces such as Boulez’s Fragment d’une ébauche (1987) or 1st piano sonata (1946). Gérard Assayag will guide somax2 AI agents’ improvisations towards different interaction strategies and sonic material drawn both from Elaine Chew’s live piano playing and corpuses of Boulez’s works including Pli Selon Pli, sometimes switching to totally different sonic universes. Thierry Miroglio will blend in with various percussions in a “tintinnabulant” (tinkling) spirit that Boulez would have much appreciated. The musician’s and the machine’s reciprocal listening and adaptation produce rich and previously unheard combinations. A variety of new possible readings of Boulez’ complexity emerge, offering a way of bringing his works to a new life beyond their finitude in a homage spirit, and a resolutely new aesthetical and ethical approach to AI. In this musician-AI dialog, the music that Boulez loved, analyzed and conducted can slip in, notably Ravel whose 150th birthday is also celebrated this year, extending the idea of re-creation to that of a meta-level dialogue of musics and influences fueled by AI.
Organized as part of the European REACH project, the Improtech international workshop-festival is dedicated to combining the universal art of improvisation with digital intelligence cultures through a series of conferences, interdisciplinary workshops, installations, performances, and concerts. After traveling across three continents and bringing together leading figures in the field, Improtech returns to Ircam, one of its founders, for an edition that will focus on space and composition/improvisation and pay tribute to American composer George Lewis, an essential reference in musical AI. This year, Ircam will host Improtech concerts in its unique concert hall, Espace de projection, encouraging a triple synthesis: that of acoustic instrumental culture with the original interactive artificial intelligence developed by the REACH project, that of solo improvisation with writing for mixed ensembles, and finally that of spatialization and sound immersion, also renewed by creative AI. This groundbreaking combination, supported by leading artistic figures in composition, improvisation, performance, and technology, will undoubtedly create a dazzling version of this sixth Improtech.
improtech.ircam.fr
VIdeo: Nicolas Sok, Rikako Takahashi, Lounico Production
Sound: Clément Cerles, Luca Bagnoli, Manuel Poletti, Sylvain Cadars
