CAMBRIDGE — The MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program presented its inaugural MIT Music Technology Research Showcase on May 13, 2026. The event, held in the Thomas Tull Concert Hall within the Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building, featured projects combining music, engineering, and artificial intelligence.

The program launched in fall 2024 as a collaboration between the Music and Theater Arts Section in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the School of Engineering. Anna Huang, an Associate Professor, delivered the keynote address titled "In Search of Human-AI Resonance." The showcase featured the program's first five enrollees, all of whom were previously MIT undergraduates.

Agustín Rayo, Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, stated that the program's goal is for MIT to lead globally in music technology theory and application. He emphasized its interdisciplinary nature, saying, "It's not just about making music with technology; it's also about working across disciplines to help better shape the future of expression in an AI-driven world, all while reflecting MIT at its best."

Eran Egozy, director of the Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program, described the event as a "harmonious hybrid of concert and symposium." He noted the students' rapid progress, adding, "It's a little mind-boggling to see what our students have achieved in just one short and fast-paced year." Egozy also stated, "While we originally debated the trade-offs between a one-year and a two-year master's program, I think this cohort really showed us that we can make huge strides in learning and research abilities in a concentrated period of time."

Student Claire Southard developed a machine-learning model to identify musical notes in EEG signals. Southard explained her motivation, saying, "Every year, musicians are diagnosed with movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease and dystonia, or experience injuries that prevent them from controlling their hands and bodies in the ways required to play their instruments." She added, "Because of this, too many musicians are forced to stop doing what they love." Her work explores translating brain activity into music to bypass motor control.

Other student presentations included Carlos Mariano Salcedo's work on neural cellular automata music visualization and Zhixing Chen's demonstration of a motion-to-music system for social choreography. Valerie K. Chen performed cello in a piece titled "Whale Cello (there?)!," and Nithya Shikarpur sang in "The Moving Drone." Matthew Michalek played piano during Rachel Loh's JAM_BOT Visualizer presentation. The Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building opened in 2025, and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing provided support for the graduate program.