Learning from the Masters as technology pushes the boundaries of the performing arts.
I recently attended the Terena and Internet2 Performing Arts Production Workshop, hosted by GARR at the Music Conservatory of Trieste, Italy.
The first day began with a welcome from Ann Doyle of Internet2 and Valentino Cavalli of Terena and ended with one of the many highlights of the workshop. The workshop participants were given first hand experience of a violin master class demonstration between Maria Fiore Mazzarini at the Music Conservatory in Trieste and Catherine Miller from the New World Symphony. Playing one of Bach’s movements, Miller gave both praise on Mazzarini’s playing and instruction on improving her performance of the piece.
Another demonstration during the workshop was of ConferenceXP, a high-quality, low latency multipoint conferencing system. Originally created by Microsoft Research, many universities in the US and Ireland are actively involved in researching and developing ConferenceXP, which, since July 2007, has been developed by the Centre for Collaborative Technologies at the University of Washington.
Two main themes became apparent throughout the workshop. One, centred around showing the participants how technology, such as video conferencing, can be used to enhance the performing arts experience, while the other, centred on the recurring importance of audio quality over video quality. Although this latter theme was suggested throughout the three days, Brian Shepard from the University of Southern California dedicated two presentations to the topic. Shepard highlighted what considerations must be made in order to achieve the best quality audio for videotelepresence.
Shepard also demonstrated EchoDamp, a multi-channel audio mixer and echo controller for use with high-bandwidth videoteleconferences. For anyone interested, this will be available to download in the autumn.
The workshop closed with a hands-on demonstration of DVTS (Digital Video Transport System) which achieves high quality audio and video with low encoding latency over the internet. Ben Fineman from Internet2 and Claudio Allocchio from GARR presented an overview of the system during Tuesday morning, with many of the other presentations using DVTS to conference with the workshop participants.
More information on all the topics covered at this years Performing Arts Production workshop, the slides are available via this link: http://www.garr.it/eventiGARR/papws/programme.html
Emma Smith at the Performing Arts Production Workshop, 13th – 15th July in Trieste, Italy. http://www.garr.it/eventiGARR/papws/