NPAPW18 Programme

10:00-12:30   Performing Arts and Advanced Networking 101 (for New Attendees / Optional for Returning Attendees)

10:00 – 11:15 Introduction to Video tools (Justin Trieger, New World Symphony, USA)

LOLA and Ultragrid and H.323, oh my! The options available for collaboration over advanced networks could leave one feeling like Dorothy lost in the woods. In this beginner session, you will learn a bit of history about how we arrived to the tools of today, the strengths and weaknesses of current technologies, explore some prominent use cases and observe brief demonstrations of the leading platforms. This session is designed to equip you with a baseline understanding for the activities that follow. Please leave your ruby slippers at home.

Slides:

Performing Arts and Advanced Networking

Audio, Video and Lighting

11:15 – 11:30 Refreshment Break

11:30 – 12:30 Introduction to Audio Management (Jesper Andersen, Royal Danish Academy of Music)

A hands-on lesson about audio production for video conferences. Topics will include microphones, echo management, processing and physical setup of video conferencing rooms.

OPENING PERFORMANCE

13:00-13:30   Paris, Texas by Sam Shepard

Classic American theatre takes center stage at the New World Symphony to kick off NPAPW2018, but in a very nontraditional way. Two players, one in Miami and one in Tampere, Finland perform together on a virtual stage made possible by the Nimbra system and advanced networks.

Directed by Mikko Kanninen, University Lecturer, University of Tampere
Production by Matias Palo, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Tampere
Creative Supervision by Dr. Tom Gorman, School of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University

13:30-14:00   Welcome

• Howard Herring (New World Symphony, President and CEO)
• John Kieser (New World Symphony, Provost)
• Ann Doyle (Internet2)
• Sigita Jurkynaitė (GÉANT)

Join an open conversation with New World Symphony Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Michael Tilson Thomas, Violinist Pinchas Zuckerman and other artists and administrators about the state of interactive technology and its impact on performance and education. Attendees and presenters will have the opportunity to share current and future projects to explore how upcoming technological advances may influence the way art is taught, performed and experienced.

• Ann Doyle (Internet2)
• Justin Trieger (New World Symphony)
• Christianne Orto (Manhattan School of Music)
• Maria Minaricova (GÉANT)
• Tom Gorman (Conventry University)
• Additional Speakers TBA

Networks allow for an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate with partners around the world. Representatives from APAN, Europe (West, East, Northern), South America and North America share past experiences and strategies for producing successful intercontinental events and programs. Brief presentations of prominent projects will be followed by a panel discussion with questions from the audience.

• Dr. Joe Bennett (Berklee College of Music)
• Paul Ferguson (Edinburgh Napier University)

In 2017, Berklee College of Music and Edinburgh Napier University endeavored to record live jazz performers collaborating across the Atlantic Ocean. Utilizing Internet2, LOLA and simultaneous Pro Tools sessions, the project was able to demonstrate the potential distributed audio recording. The participant-authors will discuss the implementation and operation of the sessions, focusing on the subjective, phenomenological experience of the musicians and production team, and documenting the studio management processes that were used to make the artistic collaboration as immersive as possible within latency constraints. The musicians’ reflective commentary will be analyzed in the context of the musical material itself, with the aim of gaining further insight into the effect of the project on both musical considerations and session management practice.

Convene with your fellow attendees and presenters on the roof of the New World Center for lite bites and socializing. Some technology and experts will be available for hands-on demonstration.

Sound Spatialization with MyoSpat

Balandino Di Donato (Goldsmiths University)
Chloe Tula (New World Symphony)
John Henry Dale (New World Symphony)

Enjoy three performances utilizing MyoSpat, an interactive system that allows musicians to manipulate timbral and spatial properties of sound as well as light projections through hand gestures. Pieces to be performed include Chanson dans la nuit by Carlos Salzedo (1929), Water Shapes by Balandino Di Donato (2018) and Ajedrecista Algrabraica: Polgár vs Konrad 1986 by John Henry Dale (2017).

All three performances will be streamed live on April 24 in 360-degree video with Ambisonic (surround) sound for remote viewers (headphones encouraged). To watch visit www.facebook.com/NewWorldSymphony at 17:30 EDT.

09:30-10:15   Anilla Cultural – (Delma Rodriguez, Director, Uruguay)

The Anilla Cultural (Cultural Ring), formed in 2011, is a multinational effort to extend access to cultural and educational programs in participating countries of the Americas and Western Europe. Hear from Uruguayan project lead Delma Rodriguez about some of the many projects they’ve conducted over the years and how they’ve built a network of countries collaborating with the use of R&E Networks.

In October 2017, the EaPConnect project organized a private musical performance for participants of the 2^nd EaP Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy. Cutting-edge, high-bandwidth networks and ‘LoLa’ , an ultra-low-latency collaboration platform, combined to seamlessly connect renowned musicians from Estonia and Armenia who were located in Tallinn with musicians from Georgia and Belarus located in Minsk, so they could play together in real time.

This exclusive event for the European Ministers, Ambassadors and high level EC officials demonstrated the potential of digital technologies to support harmonious cross-border collaboration. Learn how this collaboration allowed for the crossing of both social and political borders and enjoy a brief live demonstration.

In this session, project participants will share their experiences, knowledge and future plans.

On the panel:

• Reso Kiknadze (Rector of the Tbilisi State Conservatoire, Georgia)
• Naira Kocharyan (Junior Researcher, National Academy of Scences of Armenia)
• Laura Põldvere (Award-Winning Singer, Estonia)
• Paolo Girol (PhD Candidate at the Composition Department of Estonian Academy of Music, Tallinn)
• Oleg Iazina (Musician and Senior Teacher, Belarusian State Academy of Music)
• Eugene Efimov (Head of International Cooperation, Department of the United Institute of Information Technologies, Belarusian Academy of Sciences)
• Kristina Lillemets (Director, Infrastructure at Information Technology Foundation for Education (HITSA), Estonia)
• Arkadi Avanesov (Vice Rector, International Relations at Yerevan State Conservatory after Komitas, Armenia)

11:45-13:00   LOLA, Ultragrid and MVTP updates

• Claudio Allocchio (GARR)
• Milos Liska (CESNET)
• Sven Ubik (CESNET)

Project leads for LOLA, Ultragrid and CESNET’s 4K streaming appliance (MVTP) share recent developments for each platform. The presentation will include the recent release of LOLA v1.5.0, new features and a look to the future of LOLA v2.0 and multisite functionally. Milos Liska will lead a walkthrough of the new Ultragrid graphical user interface, which opens of the application to less experienced users. Sven Ubik will share the most recent work with the MVTP appliance with a live demonstration of the technology in action.

14:00-15:00   On The Fringe – (Dan Nichols, Northern Illinois University)

Over the past several years, perhaps no single person has fostered collaborations with groups on the fringe of networking infrastructure than Dan Nichols of Northern Illinois University. In this session, Dan will explain how to reach partners with limited expertise and resources. Prominent software solutions like Artsmesh and Jam Kazaam will be explored.

From veteran producers to first time experimenters, we all have asked ourselves at some point, “what the hell was that?” This session will feature a series of 5-10 minute lighting talks that will cover various successes, failures and the lessons learned from the NPAPW community.

If you would like to present a lighting talk, please email 2018-npapw@internet2.edu with a proposed topic and brief abstract up to 240 characters.

Sharing their stories with the public:

• Tom Gorman (Coventry University) – Telepresence project, the new collaboration with Helsinki
• Trond Engum and Otto J Wittner (UNINETT) – What happens when you place several music producers and musicians in different sound studios and interconnect everything into a “virtual” collaborative studio?
• Paolo Girol and Innar Järva – What the hell the Estonian Academy of Music and HITSA_EENet are doing!
• Bartalomiej Idzikowski – WebRTC-based multimedia real-time communication service from GÉANT
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All attendees are invited to a group dinner at Yard House, located at 1681 Lenox Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33139.

EVENING PERFORMANCE

20:00-20:45 The Spaces Within  (Concert Hall)

The New World Center comprises a vast collection of geometries: a range of spaces seemingly carved into the solid mass of their container with little respect for the right‐angle or the straight line. An interior where it can be difficult to comprehend where one surface finishes and another begins, as to where the volume of any one space touches another. Could music performed simultaneously across separate parts of the building explore and expose the remnants of musicians who reside between? Could it access other worlds that are lost between the physical geometries? Enjoy a brief work-in-progress performed by Fellows of the New World Symphony and Studio Biscoe that explores these ideas.

Concept, Design and Production by Ian Biscoe (Studio Biscoe)
Choreography by Jana Bitterova (Studio Biscoe)
Artistic Direction by NWS Violin Fellows Roman Yearian and Christopher Robinson

• Ali Hossaini, Research Fellow and Artist, King’s College London
• Zoran Cvetkovic, Professor of Signal Processing, King’s College London

5G networks offer a new frontier in wireless communications. Finally, we are able to achieve speed and bandwidth comparable to ethernet through the air. Artist Ali Hossaini will share details about a recent performance combining the Young People’s Chorus of NYC and an ensemble at the Guild Hall in London that leveraged this emerging technology. Network scientist Maria Lema Rosas explains how 5G techniques can create ultra-low latency performance environments. Professor of Signal Processing, Zoran Cvetkovic, joins Ali to discuss Soundscape, sound rendering software created at King’s College and used in the performance to create hyper realistic 3D sound spaces using conventional speaker arrays.

• Ian Biscoe and Jana Bitterova  (Studio Biscoe)
• Renate Kreil (ACOnet)
• Maria Isabel Gandia Carriedo (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya)

How do you coordinate artistic development and staging of networked performances spanning thousands of miles? How do performers rehearse when they are in different countries? How can you have a networked performance with a country that has very limited public internet access? Are physical meetings necessary for the the success of a networked performance?

From involvement in ten networked performance projects over the past 5 years, spanning Europe and North America, our presenters will talk about the challenges and solutions involved in producing and staging networked performances.

Producer Renate Kreil will share her experiences from the NetArt series, performances connecting dancers and musicians from multiple European locations. Maria Isabel Gandia Carriedo will discuss CSUC’s forays into multisite performance.

• Ann Doyle (Internet2)
• John Kieser (New World Symphony)
• Sigita Jurkynaitė (GÉANT)

Join us for a celebration of talented young musicians from South Florida and around the country. MTT will serve as host for a Town Hall Master Class featuring long-distance learning experiences and traditional master class coaching. LOLA, a low-latency video software, will enable this event to transcend the boundaries of geographical distance and bring student communities together. The Town Hall Master Class is an NWS Connect event and will stream live on MUSAIC. 

*NPAPW attendees are also cordially invited to observe the New World Symphony Side-by-Side WALLCAST® concert on April 28th at 20:00.