Research Catalogue

It Will Be Fine, is engaging in the language of visual representation through the combined mediums of painting, photography and artificial intelligence (Ai) together with images held in the Special Collection picture archive in Bergen. To reflect on the ways in which meaning and memory is constructed and conveyed through visual forms and knowledge systems.

This exposition reflects on how machine learning can be integrated with algorithmic composition and live coding to expand digital music creation. The research examines how ML-driven sound analysis, training data, and interactive models reshape compositional workflows. By viewing machine learning as an interpretative and generative process rather than a mere tool, this project challenges conventional boundaries between data gathering, system design, and artistic practice. The discussion is framed through experimental approaches that merge sound synthesis, live coding, and model training, questioning how algorithmic systems can act as both agents of composition and reflective mirrors of musical intention. Through the interplay of structured data, generative models, and exploratory workflows, the study situates machine learning within a broader conversation about creativity, computation, and the evolving role of the composer-programmer.

Anatomy of Loss: An exposition

Table of contents JSS issues

Editorial: Sounding the Contradictions in and of the (Post-)Soviet Realm

In the early years of the Soviet era, the music of two Russian faith traditions was forced into the shadows. Siberian shamans preserved chants and folk knowledge despite intense persecution, and Russian Orthodox monks preserved early forms of plainchant in remote monasteries away from the watchful eye of the government. Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), herself a member of the richly-historied and often-marginalized Tatar people, became a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian in the 1960s. During the 1970s, she began performing improvisations with her ensemble Astraea, familiarizing herself with many instruments used by Siberian shamans. Her references to shamanism continued to increase among her concert-hall compositions over the following decades. As a new generation began to embrace the freedom to part from state-sponsored atheism during the 1990s and 2000s, shamanic chanting and Russian Orthodox Znamenny chant experienced a renaissance of practice and scholarly interest. Gubaidulina responded with her music: in her 2005 flute concerto …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair, Gubaidulina’s flute soloist takes on the role of chanter. Drawing on Tia DeNora’s research in the sociology of concerto forms, Kofi Agawu’s framework of musical “topics,” and the composer’s own reflections on the concerto metaphor, this article analyzes how Gubaidulina frames the solo flutist as Siberian shaman and Russian Orthodox cantor within subsequent episodes of this concerto. In this way, the soloist “speaks” through the music of these faith traditions that remained underground for much of Gubaidulina’s adult life. …The Deceitful Face of Hope and of Despair is a flute concerto deserving of its title, demonstrating the dynamic potential of works by post-Soviet composers to contend with the sociological tensions that affect any individual whose cultural, ethnic, or spiritual identity has been the target of discriminatory policies.