The first show of the AI and Music Festival brings together an eminence of  jazz and classical piano with a custom AI, in a co-creation between Sónar and  Barcelona’s UPC.
The show, entitled “Piano + AI”, will be the world premiere of a work co-created by the famous pianist and composer  Marco Mezquida  together with UPC researchers  Iván Paz  and  Philippe Salembier, in collaboration with the  Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC). The piece will promote a live ‘conversation’ between the piano and artificial intelligence, using real-time audio analysis and digital sound synthesis.

A virtuoso pianist,  at home with both classical music and jazz, and an excellent improviser, throughout his career Marco Mezquida has played with instrumentalists of all genres, and this time, his collaborator on stage will be an AI.

Marco Mezquida "Piano + AI" is a co-creation project with scientists and engineers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) who have developed an artificial intelligence instrument that recognizes the different techniques of the pianist and responds in real time with different synthesized soundscapes, generating a feedback between the pianist and the artificial intelligence.
Iván Paz, musician and researcher specialized in the use of artificial intelligence within the practice of livecoding, and Philippe Salembier, engineer specialized in digital signal and image processing, have worked on the project.

Josep Maria Comajuncosas, musician, computer engineer and professor at ESMUC (Escuela Superior de Música de Catalunya), and Joan Canyelles (Shelly), musician and engineer in audiovisual systems, collaborated in the sound design.

The rehearsals of the concert have been carried out at ESMUC and the collaboration of the pianist Anna Francesch has also been counted with the collaboration of the pianist Anna Francesch.

co-created by Sónar and UPC