Lunch Concert 3A
Concert 3A offers a fascinating stage for the Steinway Spirio—the world’s most advanced self-playing piano system. In this session, the piano is taken far beyond its traditional role: it acts as an autonomous performer, a controller, and even an interface for human brain activity.
This Lunch Concert is open to the public. Those without a conference pass can purchase a ticket here.
Program Overview
Elevator Pitch
Juan Vassallo
Cello: Antonio Lo Curto (Ensemble 404)
Chant
Yoonjae Choi
Cello: Antonio Lo Curto (Ensemble 404)
Mulholland Revisited
Heloise Garry
“Empathic Machines” for One Pianist’s Mind and Disklavier™
Masatsune Yoshio and Atsushi Mori
Piano: Atsushi Mori
Voici que la saison décline
Mikako Mizuno
Clarinet: Anyu Lyu (Ensemble 404)
La Nuit Bleue
Zhixin Xu and Yunze Mu
About the pieces & artists
Juan Vassallo: Elevator Pitch
Philosopher Hartmut Rosa suggests that our society is characterized by acceleration due to rapid technological advancements, leading to constant time shortages. As we adapt to quick updates via smartphones and social media, communication becomes faster and more fragmented, favoring brief, direct forms like the elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a short summary speech meant to convey ideas or products within the duration of an elevator ride. It is aimed at being clear and persuasive to a wide audience.
In politics, new communication techniques exploit these brief, impactful messages, often oversimplifying complex issues and lacking depth. Such strategies have been criticized for manipulating public opinion and stirring emotions, leading to biased and divisive rhetoric that can aid authoritarian or intolerant movements.
The piece poses an artistic focus on these contemporary methods of communication -such as an elevator pitch- and the potential for manipulation of sound-bite content by political figures. The piece thus is a sardonic analogy to a political speech, which is portrayed here as empty of substance, and as a construct derived from a carefully crafted algorithmic rhetoric, and the sonification of spoken phrases. Additionally, nonsensical political speeches synthesized through commercial text-to-speech systems are used as sound material for the electronics.
About the artists
Juan Sebastián Vassallo is an Argentinian composer and live-electronics performer based in Bergen, Norway. He holds a Ph.D. in Artistic Research from the University of Bergen. His artistic research explores human–computer interaction in art creation, at the intersection of computer-assisted composition, artificial intelligence, algorithmic poetry, generative visuals, and live electronics.
His music has been performed internationally by ensembles and soloists including Projecto RED (Argentina), Quasar Saxophone Quartet (Canada), Hinge Quartet (USA), Vocal Ensemble Tabula Rasa (Norway), Edvard Grieg Kor (Norway), JÓR Saxophone Quartet (Scandinavia), Zone Experimental Basel (Switzerland), and Lucas Fels (Germany), among others.
His work has received multiple awards, including first prize at the AI-based composition contest at the IEEE Conference on Big Data (Washington, D.C.) for Oscillations (iii). Other distinctions include selections and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (Argentina), ISCM/Chengdu River Sun Prize (China), and several contemporary art competitions.
He has received international grants from UNESCO-Aschberg and the Organization of Ibero-American States (IBERMÚSICAS), supporting artistic residencies in the United States. His practice is strongly collaborative and interdisciplinary, and alongside his experimental work, he maintains an active career as a tango pianist and arranger.
Cello: Antonio Lo Curto (Ensemble 404)
Yoonjae Choi: Chant
Chant is a live electronic work that transforms the cello through vowel-based formant processing, creating a hybrid vocal–instrumental language reminiscent of primordial voice. As part of a broader research project on real-time live electronics formant synthesis, the piece explores how electronic modulation can expand instrumental identity and shape emotive, multi-voiced textures.
About the artists
Yoonjae Choi is a South Korean composer whose work explores the musical potential of extended tones and spectral qualities drawn from both traditional instruments and non-instrumental materials. His compositional practice focuses on integrating acoustic sound with live electronics, soundscapes, and computer-based technologies. He frequently collaborates across media arts and experimental music disciplines.
He studied with Richard Dudas at Hanyang University and with John Gibson and Chi Wang at Indiana University. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in composition at the University of North Texas, studying with Panayiotis Kokoras. His music and research have been featured at international conferences and festivals.
Cello: Antonio Lo Curto (Ensemble 404)
Heloise Garry: Mulholland Revisited
Mulholland Revisited is an interactive composition for Yamaha Disklavier / MIDI keyboard and ChucK, integrating real-time interaction between acoustic and electronic elements. By leveraging MIDI input, the piece enables the piano to function as both a performer and a controller, triggering ChucK-generated sound textures in response to live performance.
Inspired by a pivotal phone conversation in Mulholland Drive (Lynch, 2001), the work explores the blurred boundary between dream and reality through a dynamic interplay between piano-generated material and algorithmic sound synthesis. The electronic elements emerge as an extension of the piano’s acoustic voice, reinforcing the psychological tension that defines the narrative arc. An homage to David Lynch, the piece mirrors his fascination with fractured identities and surreal atmospheres, immersing the listener in a sonic landscape that expands the piano’s traditional interface into new musical and narrative dimensions.
About the artist
Héloïse Garry is an artist working at the intersection of filmmaking, theater, and performance, exploring the aesthetics of totality across art forms. Her compositions reflect a deep interest in cross-cultural and linguistic experimentation, and sonic storytelling. Her work has been presented at ICMC, NIME, NYCEMF, ICAD, Audio Mostly, the Audio Engineering Society, and the Internet Archive. As a Yenching Scholar at Peking University, she researched the politics of independent Chinese cinema and the role of music in the films of Jia Zhangke. An artist-in-residence at Gray Area and the Mozilla Foundation in San Francisco, she has collaborated with IRCAM and the Columbia Computer Music Center, and explored the sonification of the universe under the mentorship of physicist Brian Greene. In September 2024, she joined Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), where she studies with Mark Applebaum, Paul DeMarinis, and Ge Wang. Héloïse holds bachelor’s degrees in Filmmaking, Economics, and Philosophy from Columbia University, Sciences Po, and Sorbonne University.
Masatsune Yoshio: Empathic Machines
What lies beyond the pianist’s technical skill — music in which body and mind are fully integrated?
In this work, a pianist’s brainwaves are sensed using the EMOTIV Insight device, and the data is processed in Max 9 to generate performance information that is transmitted and played by a Disklavier™ piano.
Through this body-extended expression, the resulting piano music — beyond human hand alone — becomes a speculative answer to the question posed above.
About the artists
Masatsune Yoshio (1972- ) was born in Kobe. He is a composer and Media Master No. 75. His specialty is the composition of fine art pieces using computers and the compositions are based on the creation of and research regarding algorithmic compositions, acoustic synthesizing, live electronics, and expression with information technologies. His electroacoustic pieces were performed within and outside of Japan. He is an associate professor at Showa University of Music.
Piano: Atsushi Mori
Atsushi Mori is an Associate Professor at the Junior College Division of Showa University of Music.He completed his studies in the Department of Composition and the Graduate School at Showa University of Music, studying under Kazuhisa Akita.
In 1987, he received the Silver Prize in the A1 Category of the PTNA Piano Competition, and in 1993, he performed with the Warsaw Philharmonic as part of the Yamaha JOC overseas concert tour. He composed Fanfare for the “Festival of Student Orchestras” in 2002.
In addition to his work as a composer, Mori is active as a keyboardist, providing live support, arrangements, and recordings. He also specializes in music production using DAWs such as Ableton Live and Logic, and is dedicated to the analysis of popular music and the development of solfège teaching materials. His research focuses on the integration of digital technology and music education.
Mikako Mizuno: Voici que la saison décline, for clarinet and electronics
The electronic part of this piece comprises sound files containing grains of different pitches and sizes, all of which are derived from clarinet performance. These grains are placed in the field by spat. program and diffused through a cube-shaped multi-channel system. The subscribed version is rendered into four channels. The solo clarinet is required to produce special tone colours using multiphonic techniques, breath tones, harmonic colour trills, etc. The subtle timbre of the instrument connects the minute changes in visual colours and the passing of time, which were depicted in a poem by Victor Hugo.
The title of this piece comes from one of Hugo’s poems. At the end of summer, the season seamlessly transitions to autumn. The bright blue sky turns grey, the birds shiver and the grass feels cold. I tried to create sounds that reflect these slight changes and delicate nuances.
The clarinet’s multiphonic sound is enhanced by harmonised breath tones. The harmonisation, realized by special signal processing, involves not only layered pitches, but also the filtering of noisy long breaths. In the performance, especially in the latter half of the piece, Max for Live is necessary to certify the effective interactive ensemble between the clarinet player and the electronic part, which must fulfil the notated musical ensemble. The instrumentalist can play the piece according to the usual musical notation, because some notated guides in the electronic part show the tempo and the nuance of phrase for the musician, which are often the case in the latter half of this piece. The instrumentalist is sometimes demanded to catch the electronic un-pitched noisy sounds during the fermata or the rest.
About the artists
Mikako Mizuno. Composer/Musicologist. Mainly active in Japan, her music has been heard in many places including France Germany,Austria, Hungary, Italy, Republic of Moldova, and international festivals and conferences such as ISEA, ISCM, EMS, Musicacoustica, WOCMAT, NIME, ICMC, NYCEMF. Her pieces range from orchestra, chamber music, vocal ensemble, traditional Japanese instruments (sho, koto, shakuhachi, no-flute, biwa etc.) to networked remote performance through ipv6.
Clarinet: Anyu Lyu (Ensemble 404)
Zhixin Xu and Yunze Mu: La Nuit Bleue
La nuit bleue is a piece written for solo harpsichord and live electronics. After three years of harpsichord study, I had a strong thought in my mind that write a piece for harpsichord and live electronics. After the spectral analysis of the harpsichord sound as well as look through some pieces like Saariaho’s Jardin Secret II and Cage’s HPSCHD, I realized that live spectral processing of this kind of idiophonic sound would be a big challenge because of the broad frequency distribution in spectrum. So, I decided to use both fixed sounds and live processed sounds in the electronic part. Jardin Secret II and HPSCHD inspired me a lot while looking for sounds for electronics. Both of them contain noisy and glitchy sound in the tape part which are homogenies to harpsichord sound in some aspect, although somehow radical for the time they were composed, they worked well for harpsichord sound. With this idea, I set the tone of the timbral character for this piece.
About the artists
Zhixin Xu is a composer, sound artist and computer music researcher based in Shanghai, China. His compositions often involving electronics, sometimes generated by the software he develops. Much of his recent music has been focused on exploring how purely computer-generated sound materials can be used along with musical instruments and purely acoustic sounds. His music and multimedia works have been heard in the U.S, Europe and Asia on many events including ICMC and SEAMUS conferences.
Xu holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music where he studied with Mara Helmuth, and earlier degrees from CCM and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He is now assistant professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His compositions are available on the ABLAZE label.
Yunze Mu