Workgroups

Summary: This group aims to discuss various aspects of acoustics of performance rooms: generation and radiation of sound, room acoustics, measurement, and psychoacoustical evaluation of musical sounds.

Workgroup Leaders: Malte Kob, Caroline Traube, Martha de Francisco, Jithin Thilakan

Contact: kob[at]hfm-detmold.de

Summary: This group aims to study computational tools and AI for orchestration while looking at the musical research and composers' feedback in order to understand the current state of models and creative tools used for orchestral composition.

Workgroup Leader: Philippe Esling

Contact: philippe.esling[at]ircam.fr

Summary: The goal of this group is to expand project stakeholdership and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration, resulting in a wider scope for the burgeoning discipline of Orchestration Studies.

Workgroup Leaders: Moe Touizrar, Jason Noble, and Rebecca Moranis

Contact: mohamed.touizrar [at] helsinki.fi

Summary: This group aims to explore the research-creation potential in the relationship between performers and composers, learning from the experiences of all participating universities.

Workgroup Leaders: Stephen McAdams, Roger Reynolds, Caroline Traube

Contact: stephen.mcadams[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: This group aims at researching and designing new methods for computer-assisted orchestration, within the context provided by the Orchidea project (www.orch-idea.org).

Workgroup Leader: Carmine Cella

Contact: carmine.cella[at]berkeley.edu

Summary: The goal of this group is to expand our understanding of timbre and orchestration by exploring music outside the standard Western classical canon. We have three active subgroups at this time: East Asian Music Subgroup, Music and Gender Subgroup, Popular Music Subgroup.

Workgroup Leader: Robert Hasegawa

Contact: robert.hasegawa[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: This group aims to develop different orchestration analysis taxonomies encompassing different creative, practical and perceptual perspectives.

Workgroup Leaders: Stephen McAdams, Kit Soden, Félix Baril

Contact: stephen.mcadams[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: The Orchestration Pedagogy Workgroup aims to develop modular educational resources that synthesize ACTOR members' research and current pedagogy, with the goal of enhancing and expanding orchestration education by empowering educators with flexible, accessible tools designed to deepen students' understanding and practical application of orchestration across diverse music education approaches.

Workgroup Leaders: Kit Soden, Victor Cordero, Fabien Lévy

Contact: christopher[dot]soden[at]umontreal[dot]ca

Summary: This group focuses on the planning and development of the OrchView software which involves discussions on its functionalities and on the taxonomies, as well as their corresponding annotation tools (grouping effects and orchestration techniques).

Workgroup Leader: Félix Baril

Contact: felix.baril[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: This group includes music theorists, musicologists, and composers working on approaches to music analysis that address timbre and orchestration. The group merges previous workgroups focusing on 18th-century music and 20th-/21st-century music. Over the past year, the group has expanded its scope to include analysis outside of the European canon.

Workgroup Leaders: Robert Hasegawa

Contact: robert.hasegawa[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: This groups aims to build and expand the TOR, which is the open-access pedagogical, web-based resource that will be a cornerstone output of the ACTOR project.

Workgroup Leader: Kit Soden, Ben Duinker, Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez

Contact: actor-webmaster.music[at]mcgill.ca

Summary: This workgroup explores the challenges and opportunities presented by teaching timbre. One of its key aims is to assemble a repository of syllabi and assignments.

Workgroup Leaders: Emily Dolan, Alex Rehding

Contact: emily_dolan[at]brown.edu

Summary: This group aims to develop projects in the field of timbre semantics and to explore different research methods.

Workgroup Leaders: Lindsey Reymore and Jason Noble

Contact: lreymore[at]asu.edu

Summary: A group dedicated to exploring how voice timbre research can fit into orchestration studies.

Workgroup Leaders: Juanita Marchand Knight

Contact: juanita.marchand[at]mail.concordia.ca

Summary: The goal of this group is to study timbre and orchestration in the music and cultures of Africa and its diaspora.
Workgroup Members: Jason Winikoff, J. Marchand-Knight, Joshua Rosner, Danielle Davis, Chidi Obijiaku

Contact: timbreafrologicalmusic@gmail.com