Workshop - Festival in Paris -- December 2 to 7, 2025

Improtech is both a musical festival and an interdisciplinary workshop bringing together actors of research and creation from all over the world fostering musical improvisation in interaction with digital intelligences, in an assumed approach of human-machine co-creativity.

After praised editions in New York, Philadelphia, Athens, Uzeste and Tokyo Improtech Paris (ikParis'25) will land down in Paris, at Ircam, where the concept was created, for the first time !

Organized as part of the European REACH project, the Improtech international workshop-festival is dedicated to combining the universal art of improvisation with digital intelligence cultures through a series of conferences, interdisciplinary workshops, installations, performances, and concerts. After traveling across three continents and bringing together leading figures in the field, Improtech returns to Ircam, one of its founders, for an edition that will focus on space and composition/improvidsation and pay tribute to American composer George Lewis, an essential reference in musical AI.

This year, Ircam will host Improtech concerts in its unique concert hall, Espace de projection, encouraging a triple synthesis: that of acoustic instrumental culture with the original interactive artificial intelligence developed by the REACH project, that of solo improvisation with writing for mixed ensembles, and finally that of spatialization and sound immersion, also renewed by creative AI. This groundbreaking combination, supported by leading artistic figures in composition, improvisation, performance, and technology, will undoubtedly create a dazzling version of this sixth Improtech.

Highlights

This edition of IMPROTECH in Paris will welcome a number of truly exceptional personalities, including celebrated multi-award jazzman Steve Lehman, Joëlle Léandre, the double-bass diva with life time achievement award, contemporary classical composers Lara Morciano, Jose-Miguel Fernandez, Marco Suarez-Cifuentes, exploring the limits of hybrid acoustic/digital composition, sound artist, composer, and koto virtuoso Miya Masaoka Nicolas Crosse the extravagant bass player from Ensemble Intercontemporain (EIC), Aurelien Gignoux brillant percussionist in the EIC, incredible Colombian coloratura soprano Johanna Vargas, the great Malagasy zither virtuoso Justin Vali, Jean-marc Montera, avant-garde guitarist specializing in free improvisation and sound experimentation, Bernard Lubat the legendary french multi-instrumentist, Turner Williams Jr the the spirited musician playing the syncretic orient-occident instrument shahibaaja, Gyorgy Kurtag Jr and his vibrant synthesizers, composer Nicolas Brochec exploiting his research on extended techniques recognition with flutist Kamami Koga, Tamami Tono celebrated Shō player, Gagaku and computer music composer, with bugaku dancer Minako Ito, composer Georges Bloch with legendary Jaap Blonk sound poet and Benny Sluchin former Ensemble Intercontemporain trombonist, Lorenzo Colombo virtuoso percussionist from the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Alberto Gatti the composer exploring audio-tactile vibration devices and space agents, Anaïs del Sordo singer with a spirit of experimentation, creativity and extended sonic exploration, virtuoso violonist and inventor of the Mugic© system Mari Kimura, celebrated composer Sivan Eldar, Electronic Hacker and dancer NSDOS, Electroacoustic composer,performer and designer Pierre Couprie, Thierry Miroglio an essential reference in contemporary percussions.

A special dedicace this year is for George Lewis composer, pioneer of musical AI, and great inspirer of all our research projects on autonomous improvising agents. George presents a piece performed by Joelle Leandre and Miya Masaoka, with the SoVo system resulting from common research with REACH and composer and software engineer Damon Holzborn.

The Who/Men from Ircam (Marco Fiorini, Mikhail Malt, Gérard Assayag, Manuel Poletti) along with Marc Chemillier and Sylvain Cadars will create a sonic space thanks to the cocreative AI tools from the REACH project.

Workshops and performances will see the Spat'Sonore, a vast, sprawling instrument with ramifications like “climbing plants in copper tubes topped with corolla pavilions, new instruments like Federico Visi Sophtar, International Contemporary Ensemble vibrant percussionist Levy Lorenzo, Sheng Master Li Chin Li, soulful guitarist Alain Blesing with flutist Claudie Boucau and many others.

Workshops and lectures will cover a vast panorama of advanced machine learning and machine listening, gestural and spatial control, software environments, Creative Artificial Intelligence, including inevitable esthetical and epistemological questions.

In addition to the programme at Ircam an exceptional event will enlight this year's Improtech with a a performance at The Dynamo in Pantin featuring celebrated Jazz Saxophonist and Guitarist Steve Lehman and Miles Okazaki in a contemporary-jazz impro master class and concert, in company of the inevitable who/men aka the Somax Brothers.

See the full Improtech program here.

A New alliance

Improtech is dedicated to the explosive alliance between the age-old art of improvisation and the emerging cultures of digital intelligence. It fosters the co-creative dynamics that can exist between humans and machines, and in so doing, creates new meeting grounds between people, artists and audiences of all backgrounds and levels.

Exploring the relationships between music and science, composition and improvisation, writing and performance, music and other performance arts in "cyber-human" settings, Improtech has established itself as one of the major events of contemporary research and creation.

Get a glimpse at previous editions concerts and events here!

On the Menu

ikParis'25 encompasses conferences, demonstrations, workshops, master classes, musical or multimedia performances / installations, and concerts bringing together some of the world's finest musicians and researchers in beautiful venues.

ikParis'25 combines a great diversity of aesthetics, mixing musicians from the international jazz, contemporary, live electronics or traditional scene, and the young avant-garde scene of Tokyo.

ikParis'25 brings artists, researchers, engineers, thinkers, students, inventors, DYI enthusiasts covering a broad spectrum of knowledge fields, from computer science to anthropology, from musicology to critical studies, from philosophy to artificial intelligence, from acoustics to mixed realities...

Improtech Paris will focus on education and pedagogy with master classes, workshops, student projects and concerts under the direction of the great invited figures.

Read more about ImproTech philosophy and history