Biennial Mathematics and Computation in Music Conference

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports participation in the Mathematics and Computation in Music conference (MCM) held in Atlanta, Georgia, June 21-24, 2022. The meeting continues the tradition of biennial international conferences through the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music held on alternating sides of the Atlantic. The conference brings together researchers from around the world who combine mathematics or computation with music theory, music analysis, composition, and performance. MCM provides a unique platform for the communication and exchange of ideas among researchers in these areas. Conference participants who are researchers in mathematics and computation will carry out interactive sessions for the public at the Museum of Design Atlanta. The conference also includes public concerts every evening, some of them with comments, explanations, and visual accompaniment, which will exemplify and enhance the scientific program. Questions about variation, similarity, enumeration, and classification of musical structures have long intrigued both musicians and mathematicians. Mathematical models can be found for almost all levels of musical activities, from composition to sound production by traditional instruments or by digital means. On the other hand, mathematicians have found stimulating relations within applications of mathematics to established musical relations, which have led to interesting open questions in mathematics and to techniques for solving existing ones. For example, structures such as maximally even sets, developed in the context of mathematical music theory, have found applications in the Ising model in physics, and musical tiling canons have contributed to advances in the Fuglede conjecture for small dimensions. The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to achieve, for instance, human-like jazz improvisation shows the close relation between mathematical music theory and the cognitive sciences. The articles that result from the MCM conference will be published in the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) series. The articles have undergone a strict peer review process and will be presented either as talks (12-page articles) or posters (6-page articles). There will also be plenary talks and panel sessions specifically designed to formalize and integrate the relatively young field of modern mathematical music theory. The research highlighted at the meeting brings innovations not only in the mathematical and computational sciences, with new theorems and applications of abstract theories, the creation of computational models and software, etc., but also makes an impact on different areas within music, such as performance, musicology, music teaching, and music cognition. More information about the conference can be found at: http://mcm2022.org/ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.