I began piano studies at age 3, completed a doctorate from Eastman at 28, and founded my first music-tech startup not long after that.
Scroll down to see a chronological overview of my journey…
Rochberg Mentorship
In 1995, after 20 years of formal musical training, I began studies with George Rochberg until his death in 2005.
1995-2005
Eastman School of Music
Graduated Eastman with Doctorate of Music (Comp/Piano/History with Computer Music Specialization)
2002
University Teaching
Taught advanced composition, graduate pedagogy, theory, aural skills, and computer music at Dickinson College and West Chester University
2003-2004
Machine Listening Research
Developed machine listening and classification algorithms and tested a range of business cases. Left university teaching to maintain ownership of IP.
2004-2007
Patent Authorship
Initial patent filing: Pub. No.: WO/2009/085054 International Application No.: PCT/US2007/089225. Applied classification and similarity technology to copyright infringement detection.
2007
Publishing and Validation
Published “Adaptive Melodic Segmentation and Motivic identification” at International Computer Music Conference, Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Related talks followed at Vanderbilt University, NYU, and Drexel University.
2008-2009
Founded Clio Music
Raised “Series-A” venture capital and relocated company to NYC. As Chief Science Officer I headed design and development of Clio algorithms that deliver ‘sounds-like’ similarity metadata for music of any style or genre.
2009-2011
Tracking Musical Influence
Clio Music partners with Rumblefish and TiVo (formerly Rovi). Clio technology begins powering TiVo’s “Music Metadata Influence” offering. Awarded U.S. Patent No. 8,084,677 (US8084677)
2012
Mellon Foundation Research
Awarded Mellon Foundation Grant to research descriptors in musical contexts. To do this, I developed cognition-based machine listening algorithms and performed network analysis of musical descriptors to identify connections between musical affect and language. You can read more about this work here.
2013
The Beethoven Machine
“The Beethoven Machine” is an interview produced by Sean Hurley about Isomer that aired nationally on Here & Now (NPR) on November 21, 2014.
2014
Composition in the Digital World
Composition in the Digital World — Conversations with 21st Century American Composers by Robert Raines contains in-depth discussion about the state of computational creativity and the modern musical landscape. You can order your very own copy here.
2015
Computational Creativity
Created Isomer software to explore computational creativity. Over time Isomer learns how human-composed music creates and satisfies expectation (emotional tension) and uses this to assist me as a creative partner. This work is ongoing, but you can hear our most recent collaborative effort here.
2013-2020
Immersive Audio
Curated and composed for an immersive historical showcase featuring the music of Zappa, Stockhausen, Mitterer, myself and others called Music in The Constellation for the newly installed, one-of-a-kind Meyer Sound System at the National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. Spatial audio work continues using the Dolby Atmos format.
2020-present