Workshop - Festival in Tokyo -- july 29 to august 2, 2024

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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 and Uzeste, Improtech Paris-Tokyo (ikTokyo'24) will land down in Tokyo, the sizzling japanese metropolis on july 29.

This year, Improtech is associated with a momentous event, the Max Summer School, which gathers every year a large community of computer music enthusiasts at the Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) in the Musical Creativity Department at Senju campus

The Workshop thread of Improtech will merge with the daily MSS advanced Max course, providing the attendees with unique insight on CoCreative Artificial Intelligence software tools based on Max and other environments, completed with lectures sessions in the evening and two high-profile concerts on the last day.

To attend, participants should register to the Max Summer School / Improtech week here.

However, the 2 concerts and evening lectures are public and free upon reservation. Reserve here.

See a video presentation of the event by the Improtech Paris - Tokyo / Max Summer School teams on Youtube (English starting at 39').

Highlights

This edition of IMPROTECH in Tokyo will welcome a number of truly exceptional personalities, including celebrated multi-award jazzman Steve Lehman, Jim O'Rourke from the legendary Sonic Youth group and avant-garde beacon, Joëlle Léandre, the double-bass diva with life time achievement award, contemporary classical composer Lara Morciano exploring the limits of hybrid acoustic/digital composition with composer and computer music designer Jose-Miguel Fernandez, the immense Malagasy zither virtuoso Justin Vali, Jean-marc Montera, avant-garde guitarist specializing in free improvisation and sound experimentation, Turner Williams Jr the the spirited musician playing the syncretic orient-occident instrument shahibaaja.

Miller Puckette, Inventor of the Max software system and Venice Silver Lion for his life in computer music, also graces us with a keynote lecture and a musical performance in duo with the celebrated electronic musician Irwin.

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

As usual in Improtech series, the floor is wide open to major artists from the host country. This year we welcome Suguru Goto, new media artist and director of Geidai Musical Creativity Dpt with young composers from Geidai Ko Sahara, Takeyoshi Mori, Nicolas Brochec ; Michiyo Yagi, renewing the art of the Koto in the electronic esthetic, Mari Kimura, visionary virtuoso violinist creating her own gestural interaction systems, Akira Sakata, a cherished veteran of the japanese free scene, Tamami Tono celebrated Shō player, Gagaku and computer music composer, Nao Tokui both musician and researcher exploring AI potentialities in electronic music and live coding, and many others remarkable musicians and researchers.

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, notably with Pr Shlomo Dubnov, world-class specialist in Machine Learning and Information Theory and several members of the Ircam and Geidai REACH project group.

In addition to the regular programme, a truly exceptional event will enlight this year's Improtech with a a performance at Konnoh Hachimangu Shrine in Shibuya, a one thousand year old cultural milestone linked to the Shibuya clan and Japan's tumultuous medieval history, also known as one of Tokyo's rarest early Edo architectural jewels. The shrine is also associated with the life of the great writer Yukio Mishima who was a regular here. This crazy adventure was made possible thanks to Joni Waka (Johnny Walker), a character in Murakami’s novel Kafka on the shore who happens to be very real and part of Tokyo’s living legends.

Composer Georges Bloch will perform in the shrine with the Butoh dancer Taketeru Kudo who renews the Butoh genre and opens it to contemporary music, along with the bass player Takashi Seo who unleashed all the power of free impro on his instrument.

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!

For the first time, Improtech will be held in Japan : Improtech Paris- Tokyo!

On the Menu

ikTokyo'24 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.

ikTokyo'24 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.

ikTokyo'24 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-Tokyo 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