Yesterday, I was in Copenhagen to receive the Danish Broadcasting Company’s P2 Prisen for “event of the year”. The prize was awarded to MusicLab Copenhagen, a unique “research concert” last October after two years of planning.
The main person behind MusicLab Copenhagen is Simon Høffding, a former postdoc at RITMO, now an associate professor at The University of Southern Denmark. He has collaborated with the world-leading Danish String Quartet for a decade, focusing on understanding more about musical absorption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWP2X5ppFk0
The organizers asked if we could do some live data capturing during the prize award ceremony. However, we could not repeat what we did during MusicLab Copenhagen. Then, a team of 20 researchers spent a day setting up before the concert. Instead, I created some real-time video analysis using MGT for Max of the Danish Baroque orchestra. That at least gave some idea about what it is possible to extract from a video recording.
The prize is a fantastic recognition of a unique event. MusicLab is an innovation project between RITMO and the University Library in Oslo. The aim is to explore how it is possible to carry out Open Research in real-world settings. MusicLab Copenhagen is the largest and most complex MusicLab we have organized to date. In fact, we did one complete concert and one test run of the setup to be sure that everything would work well.
While Simon, Fredrik (from the DSQ), and I were on stage to receive the prize, it should be said that we received it on behalf of many others. Around 20 people from RITMO and many others contributed to the event. Thanks to everyone for making MusicLab Copenhagen a reality!
