The WCIT World Orchestra, conducted by Sergey Smbatyan, performs the first ever concert of music written live by artificial intelligence.
The WCIT World Orchestra is formed of more than 120 musicians from all over the world, including members of the Armenian State Symphony Orchestra.
The concert opens this year’s World Congress of Information Technology, one of the largest IT events in the world, which is currently being held in Yerevan, Armenia.
The concert highlights this years’ WCIT theme of artificial intelligence, and will also include state-of-the-art visualisations appearing behind the orchestra as they perform.
The special composition will be written on the spot by the new technology – developed specifically for this concert. Using machine-learning, the technology has been fed thousands of pieces of traditional Armenian music over an eight-month period in order to create a new Armenian-style piece for the opening ceremony of WCIT 2019.
The musicians will receive the AI-composed scores live onto individual iPads as it is being composed, which they, plus conductor Sergey Smbatayan, will sight-read live for the audience. They have practiced the process with the technology in rehearsals, but the first time they see this particular composition will be on stage this evening.
