Making machines that can listen
Professor Paris Smaragdis develops computers with superhuman hearing for applications like speech recognition, music understanding, and environmental monitoring.
Tod Machover’s new symphony plays with AI while reflecting on democracy
The MIT composer’s inventive “already and not yet,” premiering at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, uses new AI tools to create interplay with musicians while thematically exploring the fortunes of democracy.
Inaugural Music Technology Research Showcase celebrates work of new graduate program’s initial students
Associate Professor Anna Huang delivers the keynote address, “In Search of Human-AI Resonance,” to a capacity crowd.
Characterizing Earth’s damping mechanisms
Fourth-year PhD candidate Perrin Davidson studies the carbon cycle to understand how the planet responds to global disturbances.
Tod Machover receives George Peabody Medal for contributions to music and technology
The George Peabody Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
MIT engineers’ virtual violin produces realistic sounds
Based on the physics of how the instrument produces sound, the model could help violin makers in the design process.
Jazz in the key of life
Saxophonist Miguel Zenón, a Grammy-winning MIT faculty member, creates a distinctive blend of jazz and traditional Puerto Rican music.
Seeing sounds
Mariano Salcedo ’25, a master’s student in the new Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, is designing an AI to visualize and express music and other sounds.
Recreating the forms and sounds of historical musical instruments
Through an interdisciplinary collaboration between MIT and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, researchers are creating playable physical and synthesized replicas.
Keeril Makan named vice provost for the arts
An acclaimed composer and longtime MIT faculty member, Makan will direct the next act in MIT’s story of artistic leadership.
The “delicious joy” of creating and recreating music
Leslie Tilley combines deep experience as a musician with cultural and formal analysis, to see how people refashion music anew.
Remembering Professor Emerita Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger, a pioneer in music education
The former department chair was an early innovator in the use of artificial intelligence to both study and influence how children learn music.
Blending neuroscience, AI, and music to create mental health innovations
Media Lab PhD student Kimaya Lecamwasam researches how music can shape well-being.
Study sheds light on musicians’ enhanced attention
Brain imaging suggests people with musical training may be better than others at filtering out distracting sounds.
“FUTURE PHASES” showcases new frontiers in music technology and interactive performance
Groundbreaking MIT concert, featuring electronic and computer-generated music, was a part of the 2025 International Computer Music Conference.