The South West peninsula of the United Kingdom is all set to become one of the major new areas of technological and cultural growth in Europe.
At the epicentre lies the city of Plymouth, whose enterprising university is already making waves in the academic world, not least in its establishment of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR).This centre is formed of scholars from different backgrounds and different departments across the University, bringing together Computing, Neuroscience Education, Music, and Media. ICCMR is led by Eduardo Reck Miranda, a composer who deftly marries in his academic work visionary ideas about future states of music with the ability to articulate accessible and realistic music experiences.
Paving the Way for Tomorrow’s Music
The relationship between the people who make music happen and computing technologies is pivotal for the future of the music industry. Computer technologies are having a profound impact on how music is studied, composed, performed, listened to, stored and distributed. For instance, software sound synthesis techniques offer musicians the possibility of creating bespoke digital musical instruments capable of producing an unprecedented range of novel sounds; and Artificial Intelligence techniques allow for the design of sophisticated composition methods that would have been impossible to conceive otherwise.
The best example of the ICCMR creations is this New Music Award 2008 winner project from Jane Grant, John Matthias and Nick Ryan: THE FRAGMENTED ORCHESTRA.

The pioneering composition mirrored the function of the human brain and the way it processes sound, using state of the art technology, and more than a little know-how (it's creators are all physicists as well as artists). It worked by 24 ‘neuron units' being placed across the UK in specially chosen locations, including a football stadium, cathedral, dairy farm, school playground, motorway crash barrier and a field. As each of the ‘neurons' were stimulated by sound, created by both the public and the elements, they selected audio fragments to be streamed across an invisible network or cortex created between them. The cortex then formed a living instrument, which interpreted the fragments of sound as music.
The cortex of 24 fragmented audio channels then flowed to a central space at FACT, Liverpool. Visitors to FACT could listen via 24 speakers to the collective sounds from each site and their interaction with each other. This performance could also be heard at each of the 24 ‘neuron' sites, as well as online.