On April 5, 2019, our own Prof. Marcelo Wanderley presented a prestigious Vollmer Fries Lecture at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute titled "Frontiers in Musical Interactive System Design & Aesthetics". The event was part of an initiative called Art_X, which aims to help Rensselaer students to discover the connections between art, science, and technology.
Dr. Wanderley is part of the Music Technology Faculty at McGill University and the director of the Input Devices and Music Interaction Laboratory (IDMIL). His research is mainly centred on the development of new interfaces for music performance.
Here is the lecture's abstract:
Though it has been claimed that “Musical interface construction proceeds as more art than science, and possibly this is the only way that it can be done” (Cook 2001), the role of engineering in interface design and construction is equally major, albeit sometimes neglected (Medeiros & Wanderley 2014). Given the unique physical and cognitive requirements of musical performances, it is essential that performers have access to responsive and reliable interfaces, many times including innovative engineering solutions (Hollinger & Wanderley, 2015). In this talk I will discuss ways to address these complementary claims, building upon several examples of musical interfaces developed at the IDMIL, McGill University, including tools to help prototype musical interfaces (Malloch et al. 2014; Calegario et al. 2017).