You might not know Laura Escudé’s name, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen her work. As a live show programmer, she’s collaborated with Kanye West, JAY-Z, Logic and Charli XCX. She’s programmed music for Cirque du Soleil and American Idol.
And through her company, Electronic Creatives, she manages an entire team of programmers and playback engineers that’s expanded her client base even further, to include such artists as Drake, The Weeknd, Pentatonix and Harry Styles.
As one of the pioneers in live show programming — especially the use of Ableton Live software, now widely regarded as the industry standard — Escudé has helped reshape how the concert industry uses electronic music and digital playback across virtually every genre of music.
The neuropsychologist Erik Scherder has found that music triggers a system of recompenses in the brain, which activates feelings of happiness. He says the enjoyment of music is a good way of keeping mentally agile.
In early ’19, the educational initiative will draw the curtain
It is with great cause for celebration that we announce that the Mmmmaven Project–a plan to educate hundreds of people–will conclude with resounding success.
We’ve done an amazing thing! For almost seven years, we have kept this project growing. With tremendous support from the community and our instructors as well as the dedication of our students, we’ve been able to give hundreds of people new digital tools to create and mix music.
Our events aren’t going anywhere. The weekly Make It New celebration and annual Together Festival–as well as the other events we produce year round–will continue.
While the physical space will close with honor early next year, the next iteration of this new music movement will take a new form. Stay tuned for the next chapter. It’s coming!
There were many times we couldn’t believe what we had all accomplished together and couldn’t be happier with the many, manypeople who contributed. We are sure whatever and whoever comes next will be even more awesome. In the meantime, any and all correspondence regarding this future should be directed to alex@mmmmaven.com.
Watch this space. The celebrations and collaborations will continue in perpetuity, and, of course, thank you for the six years of support.
Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence make music composition easier than ever – because a machine is doing half the work. Could computers soon go it alone?
Most recently, producer Baauer – who topped the US charts in 2012 with his viral track Harlem Shake – made Hate Me with Lil Miquela, an artificial digital Instagram avatar.
“The first computer-generated score, a string quartet called the Illiac Suite, was developed in 1957 by Lejaren Hiller (MIT), and was met with massive controversy among the classical community.”
“Fast forward to 1980, and after an insufferable bout of composer’s block, California music professor David Cope began building a computer that could read music from a database written in numerical code.”
“YouTube singing sensation Taryn Southern has constructed an LP composed and produced completely by AI using a reworking of Cope’s methods.”
“Southern uses an open source AI platform called Amper to input preferences such as genre, instrumentation, key and beats per minute. Amper is an artificially intelligent music composer founded by film composers Drew Silverstein, Sam Estes and Michael Hobe.”
