Lunch Concert 2A

The second lunch concert of ICMC HAMBURG 2026 takes listeners on a journey through different cultures and technological approaches. The focus is on transformation: how are traditional instruments, natural sounds, or even everyday noises reinterpreted through the lens of computer technology and artificial intelligence?
The international composers are once again partly supported by Hamburg’s Ensemble 404, which bridges the gap between academic composition and vibrant performance.

This Lunch Concert is open to the public. Those without a conference pass can purchase a ticket here.

 

Program Overview

Plight of the Monarch
Salvatore Siriano

Sprinkle
Huixin Xue
Pipa: Yinghan Liu
Computer Music Designer: Shihong Ren

Late Shift
Benjamin Broening
Flute: Giusy Panzanaro (Ensemble 404)

Fall and Rise
Wan Heo
Violin: Bahar Erunsal (Ensemble 404)

Squeakeasy
Jonathan Wilson
Violin: Yao Dong Zhang (Ensemble 404)

I Dreamed of Naïma
Christopher Dobrian
Vibraphone: Aiyun Huang

Free-Wheelerish (a movement from the suite Things Ain’t What They Used To Be)
Mark Whitlam
Percussion: Mark Whitlam
Bassoon: Rodrigo Rodrigues (Ensemble 404)

 

About the pieces & composers

Salvatore Siriano: Plight of the Monarch

Monarch butterfly populations face ongoing and compounding threats driven by habitat loss, pesticide exposure, invasive plant species, and continued encroachment on open land where milkweed once thrived. Since the mid-1990s, eastern migratory monarch numbers have fallen to a fraction of their historical peaks; although recent seasons have shown modest recovery, populations remain far below long-term averages.
Within this context, the work traces key stages of the monarch lifecycle, including overwintering in Mexico, migration, mating, and reproduction, using scientific data from the Monarch Joint Venture and the U.S. Geological Survey translated into sonic parameters through additive and FM synthesis. Long-term population trends shape the evolving texture, dynamics, and rhythmic behavior of the sound, allowing ecological data to inform the temporal and spectral structure of the audio.
Translation also operates across media. Original filmed footage from the Fox River Valley in Illinois, a recurring migratory and breeding landscape for eastern monarch populations, is transformed through point-cloud and depth-camera processes. Human presence and natural environments are rendered as shifting, particle-based forms whose fragmentation mirrors the precarity of monarch habitats, situating ecological data within a perceptual and embodied frame rather than a purely representational one.
The work concludes with documentation of a community-based public artwork that distributes milkweed seeds to local residents. While the piece does not involve direct audience interaction, this closing gesture reframes participation as shared responsibility. Rather than positioning environmental change solely at the level of policy, the work emphasizes individual and community-scale actions, such as reducing pesticide use, planting milkweed and other native species, and allowing greater biodiversity within managed landscapes, as tangible responses to ongoing habitat loss. Because eastern North American monarch butterflies lay their eggs exclusively on milkweed, these localized decisions directly shape their capacity to survive and reproduce.

About the artist

Salvatore Siriano is a Chicago-based composer, audiovisual artist, and educator whose work explores the relationship between sound, image, and the natural environment through digital media. His recent works have been presented at Sound/Image Festival (UK), SICBM (Brazil), Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Art Alive Festival (Portugal), WOCMAT (Taiwan), NOIS//E (Italy), as well as ICMC, NYCEMF, and SEAMUS. He is full-time music faculty at Triton College.

 

Huixin Xue: Sprinkle

This piece seeks to explore new timbres and performance techniques for the pipa, aiming to integrate the language of electronic music with the instrument’s sound in order to present a novel acoustic effect.
The pipa uses an unusual strings A #D E #G.

About the artists

Huixin Xue is a Chinese composer, music producer and Music AI researcher. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Music AI at Shanghai Conservatory of Music, an exchange student at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. She graduated from the Music Engineering Department of Shanghai Conservatory of Music both for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
Her pieces won numerous awards, including The Honorable Mention of the 2024 Sound Chain International Electronic Music Composition Competition (the only Chinese winner among the 6 winners worldwide). Her work was presented at the 2025 ICMC. Her pieces have been performed at major festivals. She also has participated in over twenty commercial music creation projects.
During her doctoral studies, she participated in the development of the AI Music Therapy Pod at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, co-developed SongEval, the first aesthetic evaluation dataset for AI-generated songs, and contributed to organizing the Automatic Song Aesthetic Evaluation Challenge at ICASSP 2026.

Pipa: Yinghan Liu

Computer Music Designer: Shihong Ren

 

Benjamin Broening: Late Shift

Late Shift explores the liminal light of dusk as shadows lengthen, the bright colors of day darken, and the familiar world is gradually transformed. A comparable transformation takes place in Late Shift: the flute and electronics slowly descend to lower registers over the course of the piece as flute sounds are gradually replaced by whispering percussion sounds in the electronics.

About the artists

Benjamin Broening’s music has been called “adventurous, thoughtful, eloquent, and disarmingly direct.” His orchestral, choral, chamber and electroacoustic music has been performed in over twenty-five countries and across the United States by many soloists and ensembles.
Broening is recipient of Guggenheim, Howard and Fulbright Fellowships, and has also received recognition and awards from the American Composers Forum, Virginia Commission for the Arts, ACS/Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and the Presser Music Foundation among others.
Trembling Air, a Bridge Records release of his chamber music recorded by Eighth Blackbird, has been praised as “haunting” and “enchanting” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), “magical” (Fanfare), “other-worldly” (Gramophone), and “coruscatingly gorgeous” (CD Hotlist). Critics have called Recombinant Nocturnes, a disk of music for piano recorded by Duo Runedako “ breathtaking” (World Music Report) and “deep, troubling” (François Couture). Nineteen other pieces have been released by Ensemble U: in Estonia and on the Centaur, Everglade, Equilibrium, MIT Press, Oberlin Music, Open G, Métier, New Focus, Ravello and SEAMUS record labels.
Broening is founder and artistic director of Third Practice, an annual festival of electroacoustic music at the University of Richmond, where he is Professor of Music. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Cambridge University, Yale University, and Wesleyan University.

Flute: Giusy Panzanaro (Ensemble 404)

 

Wan Heo: Fall and Rise

Fall and Rise is the second episode of my previous solo cello piece, When It Falls. Drawing from the same inspiration, which was the fallen leaves on the ground at Jeolmul Forest in Jeju Island, Korea, with a variety of colors and shapes, this version for amplified violine and electronics focuses more on the timbre of the instrument. Particularly, transitions between normal to harmonics, different fingerings, and how they create different textures and sonorities.

Recording of When It Falls and field recordings from Jeolmul Forest were processed using modular synthesis, creating certain atmosphere to the piece. Pitch and rhythmic materials for the violin was extracted from spectral analysis of the recordings which gives the sonic coherence to the three different sound sources.

About the artists

Wan Heo is a Korean-born composer based in Chicago. Her works have been performed internationally in South Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Spain, and throughout the United States. Her percussion solo Unveiled Future is published by Alfonce Production.
Wan’s music has been commissioned and featured by Darmstädter Ferienkurse, SEAMUS, Yarn/Wire, VIPA, among others. She received an Honorable Mention for the Christine Clark/Theodore Front Prize in the IAWM New Music Search.
Her doctoral dissertation explores the vulnerability of South Korea’s sonic environments through field recordings made at Buddhist mountain monasteries. Works from this project have been presented at NYCEMF, the Composition in Asia Conference, and NSEME.
Wan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University. She holds a B.M. in Composition from Ewha Womans University and an M.M. in Composition from Florida State University. She is currently ABD in the Ph.D. program in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, where she works under the guidance of Alex Mincek, Stephan Moore, and Jay Alan Yim.

Violin: Bahar Erunsal (Ensemble 404)

 

Jonathan Wilson: Squeakeasy 

Squeakeasy was written for Maja Cerar during the COVID-19 pandemic from late 2020 to the early summer of 2021. The composition was conceived from my accidental discovery of a metallic chair that was loosely bolted to a metal patio set and could pivot in such a way to create an ear-piercing, yet irresistible screech. The timbral qualities of that chair intrigued the composer to determine the various sonic transformations that could be realized after recording that initial sound, which quickly led to pairing the electronics with the violin because of the multimbral similarities observed between them. Additional recordings of squeaky wooden surfaces, such as a wooden chair and floorboards, were included to enhance the timbral relationships between violin and electronics. The composer’s decision to explore their timbral relationships was partly inspired by Denis Smalley’s “Base Metals” by relating metal-based and wood-based sound families from the electronics to different violin timbres or extended techniques such as col legno, glissando, tremolo, pizzicato, ricochet, and natural and artificial harmonics. The structure of this composition alternates between sections with performer + electronics and cadenzas with amplified violin, which could be loosely described overall as a concertino for amplified violin based on the virtuosic elements of the violinist’s performance. The sound of the violin is amplified throughout the work by the electronic performer’s patch that was programmed on Max/MSP. The performer of the electronics triggers each instance of fixed media from the laptop while the performer follows both the score and a counter/timer that is displayed on a separate computer monitor.

About the artists

Dr. Jonathan Wilson’s works have been performed at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, European Media Art Festival, ICMC, SICMF, SEAMUS, NYCEMF, MUSELAB, NSEME, Napoleon Electronic Music Festival, Iowa Music Teachers Association State Conference, and Midwest Composers Symposium. He is the winner of the 2014 Iowa Music Teachers Association Composition Competition. Jonathan has studied composition with Lawrence Fritts, Josh Levine, David Gompper, James Romig, James Caldwell, Paul Paccione, and John Cooper. In addition, studies in conducting have been taken under Richard Hughey and Mike Fansler. Jonathan is a member of Society of Composers, Inc., SEAMUS, ICMA, and the Iowa Composers Forum.

Violin: Yao Dong Zhang (Ensemble 404)

 

Christopher Dobrian: I Dreamed of Naïma

I Dreamed of Naïma for vibraphone and interactive computer system references a composition by John Coltrane in fragmented and distorted fashion, as if recollected in a dream. The computer program, written in Max for Live, senses the sound of the vibraphone, and algorithmically adds its own sounds to extend and elaborate the instrumental sound. The 7-minute piece mixes composition and improvisation, with the computer performing interactively and responsively (with no attending technician needed), such that each performance is unique.

About the artists

Christopher Dobrian is Professor Emeritus of Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology in the Department of Music, with a joint appointment in the Department of Informatics, at the University of California, Irvine. He is a composer of instrumental and electronic music, and taught courses in composition, theory, and computer music. He conducts research on the development of artificially intelligent interactive computer systems for the cognition, composition, and improvisation of music. He has published technical and theoretical articles on interactive computer music, and is the author of the original reference documentation and tutorials for the Max, MSP, and Jitter programming environments by Cycling ’74. He holds a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied composition with Joji Yuasa, Robert Erickson, Morton Feldman, and Bernard Rands, computer music with F. Richard Moore and George Lewis, and classical guitar with the Spanish masters Celin and Pepe Romero. Dobrian has been an invited Fulbright specialist at the Korean National University of Arts, the University of Paris-Sorbonne, McGill University in Montreal, and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and has been a guest professor at Yonsei University, Taiwan National Normal University, University of Paris 8, and the National University of Quilmes in Argentina.

Vibraphone: Aiyun Huang
Acclaimed percussionist Aiyun Huang has performed with leading orchestras and at major international festivals worldwide, premiering works by contemporary composers. Her research explores the performing body across music, dance, theatre, and media technology, and she directs the TaPIR Lab at the University of Toronto, where she is Professor of Music. She founded the biennial Transplanted Roots percussion symposium, has served as a juror and keynote speaker at prestigious events globally. Born in Taiwan, Aiyun was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024.

 

Mark Whitlam: Free-Wheelerish (a movement from the suite Things Ain’t What They Used To Be)

The movement from a longer suite—titled in reference to Duke Ellington’s big band jazz classic, released over sixty years ago—offers a gentle provocation, contrasting traditional approaches to jazz improvisation with emerging paradigms in human–AI interaction. Combining real-time machine learning and deep learning tools, the piece stages a live collaboration between improvising human musicians and generative AI agents. Central to the work is a subversion of the established technique of the contrafact, whereby new melodies are composed over pre-existing chord progressions. Here, the process is inverted: AI agents are tasked with reharmonising composed melodic lines, thereby disrupting the expected harmonic framework. This indeterminacy both encourages and challenges the performers to find new musical responses.

Leveraging technologies including Somax2, RAVE, Mosaïque, and Google MediaPipe within MaxMSP, the system enables algorithmic agents to act as both collaborative and disruptive partners in the performance loop. These agents generate unexpected musical gestures and offer novel, interactive visual and audible modalities that stimulate and provoke the performers. The result is an evolving musical language that emerges from the entangled dynamics of this extended network of human and machine improvisers.

About the artists

Mark Whitlam has been a professional musician for 25 years, having toured internationally with UK jazz luminaries including Andy Sheppard, Iain Ballamy and Jason Rebello (Sting) and Mercury Prize Nominee Eliza Carthy. Recent collaborations have included work with Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp). He has also collaborated with Mercury Prize His compositions and performances have received airplay on BBC radio 2, 3 ,6 and Jazz FM, with TV credits including HBO’s miniseries Industry. Mark teaches in the UK at Bath Spa University and BIMM University, where he is a senior lecturer. He is mid-stage in his PhD in Composition at the University of Bristol, UK, exploring the affordances offered by generative AI agents in the liminal space between composition and improvisation. He also has a keen interest in the links between actor network theory and 4E cognition in the space of human-AI mediated music-making.

Percussion: Mark Whitlam

Bassoon: Rodrigo Rodrigues (Ensemble 404)

 

Volunteers

Technical Director / Main Sound
Steffen Lohrey
Leon Sudahl

Sound Assistants
Jakob Seyberth
Tim Christiansen

Stage / Light / Video
Evelin Lindberg
Dong Zhou
James Tsz-Him Cheung

Production
Aigerim Seilova
Huixin Xue
Haonan Guo
Xinyi Yang
Niko Yin
Jiwon Seo
Menghuan Feng