Musical Expressiveness in the Digital Domain

Dr. Teresa Marrin Nakra
Adjunct Assistant Professor, WPI

March 19, 2004
11 a.m. - 12 noon
Fuller Labs 320

Abstract

What are the essential differences between great musicians and good ones? How does a musician make a particular piece sound happy or sad? How does a conductor use movement to convey complex information about timing, articulation, emotion and interpretation? These are some of the many questions about music and expressiveness that remain unanswered and elusive.

Recent technological advancements have made it possible to study these questions from a quantitative perspective. A variety of sensors, computer-human interfaces, and other technologies are available to help us understand how musicians create nuanced musical performances. This talk will review several relevant technologies, including Dr. Nakra's wearable "Conductor's Jacket." This device, which contains sixteen physiological and movement sensors, has been used to collect data from professional and student conductors in an extended research study. It has revealed several important clues about how conductors use their movements to convey expressive information. Several related musical applications and technologies will also be discussed, with numerous audio/visual examples.

Biography

Dr. Teresa Marrin Nakra is a musician, inventor, conductor, and designer of new technologies for music performance. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at WPI and the Technical Director of the Electronic Music Studio at MIT. She holds both a Ph.D. and M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's acclaimed Media Laboratory, where her mentors included Tod Machover, Rosalind Picard, John Harbison, and Marvin Minsky. She also holds a bachelor's degree with high honors in Music from Harvard University. She has received numerous distinctions for her academic work, including Research Fellowships from IBM, Motorola, and Interval Research Corporation.

As the Founder and Artistic Director of Immersion Music, Dr. Nakra has been bringing a high-tech interaction paradigm to classical and traditional music. Immersion Music has produced many live music events with digital enhancements, including "Orchestral Music at the Technological Frontier," a concert at Boston's Symphony Hall that attracted 2000 attendees. Immersion Music has also developed a museum exhibit in collaboration with the Boston Children's Museum and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a digital Salon series, and a Digital Conducting Laboratory at Arizona State University.

Dr. Nakra was recently a Clifton Visiting Artist at Harvard University's Office for the Arts. As a conductor of contemporary and classical music, she is the assistant conductor of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. She has been a featured performer of the Boston Cyberarts Festival, and has also performed in numerous venues with sensor-based electronic instruments. As the culmination of her extensive doctoral study with the "Conductor's Jacket," she presented a live public performance with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra.

Host

Dr. David Brown

Refreshments will be served.

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: Sep 27, 2006, 16:05 EDT