Research on performance rendering covers a vast range of disciplines: from acoustics to medicine, from psychology to perception, and from AI to computer science. Finding a collocation for a field such as this is therefore a hard task. Collocating RENCON as the satellite event of a major conference is a good idea, because in this way people not directly connected to the “automatic music performance (AMP)” community will have the opportunity to find out about this field.
It is also important that researchers active in the AMP area become aware of the existence of the RENCON project. This can be done not only with RENCON meetings but also through maintaining the RENCON web site alive, with personal contacts, etc.
For future RENCON meetings it is important that the MIDI instrument used for the competition is made known in advance to the participants. We heard how each of the performances sounded quite “strange” because they were not adapted to the disklavier used at ATR. Another alternative is to send prerecorded sound files to the competition, as this will open the possibility to have performances not only for piano music but also for quartet, duo, voice, etc. The best artificial performers could be hired into a virtual orchestra, playing in opera houses around the “virtual” world!
It is also nice that prizes are not given to the artificial performers but to their designers. We in Stockholm are very happy to be the winners of a box of delicious rencon tea.
Finally, I would like to thank the organizers for their efforts in successfully organizing the first RENCON.
Bresin Roberto
Department of Speech, Music and Hearing