Computer Music Research

University of Plymouth
The House
Drake Circus
Plymouth PL4 8AA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1752 232579

Paving the Way for Tomorrow’s Music

ICCMR is a member of the AHRC 3D3 Centre for Doctoral Training

The Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR) is devoted to developing musical research at the crossroads of art and science. Our research expertise ranges from musicology and composition to biomedical applications of music and development of new music technologies.

ICCMR is truly interdisciplinary: we actively publish our research outcomes in learned journals and conferences in the fields of music, digital arts, computing, engineering, psychology, neurosciences and medicine [see Publications]. The impact of our research has been recognised as world-leading by the last Research Excellence Framework, REF 2014, which is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. ICCMR is based at The House, a brand new purpose-built Performance Arts Centre.

In addition to enjoying an excellent and affordable quality of life in the South West of England, music postgraduate students at Plymouth University enjoy a well-resourced creative environment underpinned by world-leading research conducted by ICCMR and the annual Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival. The groundbreaking research developed with our postgraduate students has been reported in Nature, BBC World Service, BBC Radio 3, The Gramophone, New Scientist, CNN, Scientific American, TV Globo, France Music and Polskie Radio to cite but a few.

The ICCMR offers postgraduate research opportunities at both Masters and Doctoral levels. The ICCMR is also engaged in knowledge transfer with the undergraduate provision in Music Technology at Plymouth University. Find out more about undergraduate music technology here.

If you are interested in pursuing your post-graduate studies with ICCMR, please do not hesitate to send us an email for more information (address on the right hand side, below the main menu).

ICCMR is proud to announce the publication of a new ebook

Prof Eduardo Miranda's new ebook telling the inside story of his computer-aided symphony 'Mind Pieces' is published by Intelligent Arts, New York. [see more]

ICCMR’s Dr Alexis Kirke premieres his piece for soprano and quantum computing at Port Eliot Festival

Alexis Kirke’s piece ‘Superposition' is a ground-breaking classical duet between Juliette Pochin (Mezzo Soprano) and a quantum computer. [see more]

Plymouth University signs partnership with Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory

The new partnership will initially see members of Plymouth’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR) working alongside Moscow’s Scholarly Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies of the Art of Music. [see more]

Dr. Duncan Williams delivers public lecture for the Institute of Physics

Dr Williams delivered a public lecture entitled "Using Artificial Intelligence and BCI for Music Making: Then, Now, and Next”, focusing on ICCMR’s EPSRC funded BCMI-MIdAS project. [see more]

Prof Eduardo Miranda delivers a talk on the future of computing for creativity at EG conference

Prof Eduardo Miranda and ICCMR PhD student Ed Braund join Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT Media Lab, Oscar-winning filmmaker Hugh Welchman and Sir David Attenborough to present fresh insights into the boundary-pushing technology used to reveal wonders of our natural world at EG Conference.

ICCMR is proud to announce new books

Two new books by ICCMR’s Dr Katherine Williams are published by Cambridge University Press and Equinox Publishing.

ICCMR research featured on Fox 5 TV in the USA

Prof Eduardo Miranda and PhD student Joel Eaton were invited to showcase ICCMR’s research at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, USA. [see more]

ICCMR researcher awarded fellowship by Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation

Dr Katherine Williams has been awarded the first Jazz Research Fellowship by the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation and the Jazz Education Network in the USA. [see more]

ICCMR PhD student receives award from The American Musical Instrument Society

Nuria B. Filella received a William E. Gribbon Memorial Fund award to present a paper at AMIS 2015 in Boston, USA. [see more]

ICCMR hosted CMMR 2015 on 16-19 June

The 11th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR) Music, Mind, and Embodiment took place in Plymouth, UK on 16-19 June 2015. The symposium included a series of concerts, a satellite workshop on Music Neurotechnology and Motion Capture, and an unforgettable boat cruise. Read more about the main conference here, and the satellite workshops here / here

ICCMR research into biocomputing in BBC News

This BBC News report on groundbreaking research developed at ICCMR went viral all over the globe. [see more]

ICCMR researchers featured in Channel 5’ The Gadget Show

EPSRC-funded research into detecting musical emotions in brainwaves for controlling musical systems is bound to become a commercial product soon [see more]

ICCMR artists discuss composition on BBC Radio 3

Composer Alexis Kirke and saxophonist Katherine Williams perform Fast Travel live on BBC Radio 3 In Tunes and discuss the composition [see more]

ICCMR world-leading research reported in CNN

The impact of ICCMR's world-leading REF 2014 contribution continues to resonate [see more]

ICCMR bio-computer featured in BBC News

The power of slime mould has been harnessed by the ICCMR in a new musical bio-computer. See more of this story at the BBC News website. For more information about this research, [see more].

BBC News highlights the performance of Activating Memory at Music Tech Festival

ICCMR's brain-computer music interfacing technology developed by PhD candidate, Joel Eaton, and Prof Eduardo Miranda, is one of the main highlights of Music Tech Festival, held recently at LSO St Luke's, London. [see more]

ICCMR working alongside BBC on new project EAR: Environments for Alzheimer's friendly Radio

EAR will develop radio broadcasts which are more understandable and user-friendly for people with Alzheimer's and other dementias. Click here to listen to the BBC interview with Dr Kirke

Groundbreaking Music Neurotechnology project featured on BBC News Channel and BBC World News

Prof Eduardo Miranda and ICCMR engineer Joel Eaton demonstrate the Brain-Computer Music Interfacing system behind the composition "Activating Memory" for string quartet and BCMI quartet. [see more].

ICCMR's analogue synth guru David Bessell and his band Node return with their first new release since 1995

The new CD features what is quite possibly the largest collection of vintage analogue equipment that has been assembled in a studio in recent times. [see more]

ICCMR's ground-breaking research featured at IRCAM

Prof Eduardo Miranda delivers a Research and Creativity Seminar at IRCAM, Centre Pompidou, Paris, on "Blurring the line between Musical Creativity and Scientific Development with Music Neurotechnology” [see more]

New performance of "Cloud Chamber": A Duet for Violin and Subatomic Particles, at California Academy of Sciences

Dr Alexis Kirke was invited by Stanford University to perform at the "Lepton-Photon 2013" conference at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco USA. [see more].

ICCMR research into Music and Artificial Intelligence has been featured on Deutschlandradio Kultur (Germany National Culture Radio)

Prof E Miranda was special guest on Breitband, a cultural programme on media and digital culture. [listen online]

New EPSRC-funded project will examine the impact of music on our emotions

The BCMI-MIdAS (Brain-Computer Music Interface for Monitoring and Inducing Affective States) is a collaborative project between the Universities of Plymouth and Reading, funded by two 54-month EPSRC grants. The central purpose of the project is to develop technology for building innovative intelligent systems that can monitor our affective state, and induce specific affective states through music, automatically and adaptively. [read more]

ICCMR’s Brain-Computer Music Interface breakthrough
hits the news worldwide

Leading news article in Nature by Philip Ball.

ICCMR is a pioneer of Music Neurotechnology, which is a new field at the crossroads of biomedical engineering and music technology. Featured on CNN Labs.

ICCMR’s system developed in collaboration with engineers at the University of Essex is reported in Wired.

Other news:

Mozart Mash-up by ICCMR composers for BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Radio 3