Presented by The Radiophonic Institute and the Museum Of Sound, The Sound Of The Year Awards is an annual competition celebrating sonic life in its many forms from across the globe. We caught up with esteemed recording artist Craig Vear, winner of this year’s Best Sound Innovation award, which recognises “a tool or piece of technology that has made working with sound result in a greater experience”
Tell us about what’s happening in your recording…
“We were on stage in front of a gathering of esteemed and distinguished scholars and researchers in the field of trustworthy AI at the Savoy Hotel in London. This was the first time the musicians had performed in such a situation with Jess+ [an intelligent digital score syste] and I was anxious that the AI and robot would not work. From the first sound that was created, it felt like it was going to be an exciting exploration of their collective creativity. The resulting music was deeply moving.”
Your immediate reaction after making it?
“We looked at each other knowing something exciting had just happened. We all felt it. The situation had elevated the music beyond the rehearsal situation into something that was designed to communicate something deep and moving to the audience.”
How do you feel listening to it now?
“That initial feeling remains. I feel that the musicians and the AI were elevated to a position far greater than the sum of its parts.”
What’s your background in recording sound?
“I have been a professional musician for over four decades. During this time worked with pop acts such as Tom Jones, Roddy Frame, Wolfgang Press, and my own band, Cousteau, who sold over 300,000 records and received awards such as Golden Discs. I was also commissioned to write music for the Southbank Centre, BBC, English National Ballet, Falkland Islands, and British Antarctic Survey, and was awarded an Olivier award for my work in theatre.
“I am also Professor of Music and Computer Science at the University of Nottingham split between music and the mixed reality lab. My research is naturally hybrid, drawing together the fields of music, digital performance, creative technologies, artificial intelligence, creativity, gaming, mixed reality and robotics. I have been engaged in practice-based research with emerging technologies for nearly three decades, and was editor for ‘The Routledge International Handbook Of Practice-Based Research’, published in 2022. My recent monograph, ‘The Digital Score: Creativity, Musicianship And Innovation’, was published by Routledge in 2019, and I am the series editor of ‘Springer’s Cultural Computing Series’. In 2021 I was awarded a €2 million ERC Consolidator Grant to continue to develop his Digital Score research.”
What inspires you?
“Music and sound that express something more than waveforms – there needs to be another dimension captured or transmitted. Perhaps that is emotional, imaginative, relational or cultural.”
The best advice you’ve ever been given or would give?
“Never release crap. As someone who it could be said has a long-view, it is the quality of all your works that will be judged. Be very careful what you put out there.”
If you could only ever record one more thing, what would it be?
“That first moment where humans and AI musicians truly work together to move others.”
To find out more about the Sound Of The Year Awards, go to soundoftheyearawards.com
