Live from the Conference "Mathematics and Computation in Music" (MCM 2009, New Haven)

The conference Mathematics and Computing in Music has been held over this weekend since last Friday at Yale University. Today is the last session. This conference has been an excellent event, with very interesting approaches shown for music analysis and mathematical models of tonality. I purchased the proceedings band with the paper presentations. My own poster presentation which I showed on Saturday was well received. I received encouragement to publish this as a journal paper. I also implemented an MScape version of the Tonnetz on my mobile phone, allowing participants to walk around the Yale University campus and experiencing the Tonnetz as a walk-through, with consonant triads being created as one moves from "note to note".

This is the poster which I showed here at MCM 2009:

Launch of "Our City, Our Music" this weekend!

Our City, Our Music Launch Events - Leeds 2009!

Saturday 20 June
The Party! - Official video release and live music
Doors open at 7pm – FREE @ Leeds Met Students’ Union, Civic Quarter, Calverley Street, LS1 3HE

Breaking The Illusion
Ellen & the Escapades
Cari Flower

Sunday 21 June - 11:00 – 16:00
The Tour! Music videos made by Yorkshire’s best! Shot in top secret spaces around Leeds.
Come pick up a GPS device from us and follow an interactive musical map around Leeds or join one of our walking tours departing from NTI at 12:00 and at 14:00.
@ NTI Leeds – Old Broadcasting House, 148 Woodhouse Lane, Lees, LS2 9EN

Musicians & Filmmakers featured include:

Breaking The Illusion & Patrick Garrigan

Cari Flower & Ben Waddleton

CHOPS & Ben Halsall & Dave Lynch

Ellen & the Escapades & Niki Naroz & James Rhodes

Eskimo Twins & Ben Waddleton

Gary Stewart Band & Ben Davis

Japanese Fighting Fish & Paul Emery

Superpowerless & Anna Palmujoki

TANK & Ben Waddleton & Ben Belmar

The French Defense & James Rhodes

Yonderboy & Tara Atkinson

Check out our site for more details.
http://www.OurCityOurMusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/ourcityourmusic

Prof. Nick Childs' Inaugural Lecture

On last Friday, 29.May 2009, the head of the Black Dyke Band, Prof. Nicholas Childs, gave his inaugural lecture as Visiting Professor at the Faculty Innovation North. His talk was titled "History of Brass Bands - The Golden Period". He did illustrate the points with life performances of selected works by the Black Dyke Band.

Innovation North: Annual Student Showcase

This Tuesday, the annual Innovation North Student Showcase was held in Gandhi Hall at the Leeds Met Headingley Campus. Students in their final year presented their group project, linking multimedia, internet, computing, and music together to a variety of interesting and impressive products. Several of those groups actually had clients outside of the university, who were very pleased with the professional results they got from the students' work.

Pictures from the Showcase event.

In autumn 2009, the annual networking event will link again external clients with the new last-year students cohort, for a new set of exciting projects.

Announcement: Innovation North: Annual Student Showcase

Tomorrow, on Tuesday, 12.May 2009, Innovation North hosts the Annual Showcase in which students present the results of their group project work. It is organised in a tradeshow style and will be held in the James Graham Building at the Leeds Met Headingley Campus. An evening reception is from 17:00 - 21:00, but the showcase is open for daytime viewing from 9:00 - 16:00.

More details are here at www.leedsmet.ac.uk/inn/news_innovation_north_showcase_2009.htm

Yorkshire Post Environmental Awards: Rivers Project

On 7.May 2009, the Yorkshire Post awarded the "Rivers Project" an Environmental Award in the category "Climate Change". The award trophy was handed out by Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, during the dinner celebration which was moderated by TV presenter Julia Bradbury.

The Rivers Project has been initiated and led by publisher, artist, and writer Brian Lewis (Pontefract Press). The goal of this project is to create awareness of climate change, through means of art and poetry. The project focusses on two regional areas in two different parts of the world, which have felt the effects of the changing climate in different ways: Yorkshire (UK) and Gujarat (India). The intended outcome of this project is a collection of paintings, poems, and other writings and artworks which are drawing on the individual and collective experience of the effects of climate change. A special focus has been on rivers: the river Aire (Yorkshire) and the rivers Sabarmati and Narmada have significant meaning to surrounding communities, which depend strongly on them. Flooding and drought have in recent years created headlines. This project intends to build a virtual link between these rivers, showing similarities and differences of those climatic effects.

Reinhold Behringer (Leeds Metropolitan University) has been involved in this project to provide technology components in capturing experiences and disseminating them through digital media: one aspect has been to track geographical locations for geo-centric interfaces and to integrate the art works with online multimedia distribution. He has participated in a travel to India, to the rural community of Vallabh Vidyanagar, where a set of workshops had been organised by the local academic and cultural partners of this project.

In June 2009, our project partners from India will visit Yorkshire, to learn about the issues and problems here in our region: a workshop is planned to be hosted at the Northern College Barnsley, and several site visits are being scheduled.

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The project seeks currently further funding for those activities and for reaching the envisioned goals.

Announcement: Echochroma IV Concert, 14.May

The EchoChroma IV concert will take place on 14.May 2009 in the Jubilee Room of the Leeds Met Headingley Campus, 17:00 - 19:00.

The concert features original works from Leeds Met Music Technology staff and students as well as work from the Arts and Society "Chris Watson Project". The programme includes live laptop improvisations by Kingsley Ash and Dave Raybould.

Seating is limited so please arrive early.