Join us for our pre-concert panel in Berkeley on April 5, 2025 at 3:00 pm.
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How does AI intersect with human creativity? What are the promises and perils?
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Our multi-generational pre-concert panel on the impact of AI on choral music features Austin Yip, co-founder of AI start-up Bovo Music, composer Anne Hege, who explores the roots of musicality in the intersection of ensemble interaction, technology, embodiment, and expression, and Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir singers Andrea Morales and Maeve McMullen. The panel will be co-moderated by 21V singer Becky Lau and Martín Benvenuto.
About the Panelists
Anne Hege
Composer
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Born in Oakland, CA, Anne Hege began her musical studies singing with the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir and the Oakland Youth Chorus. Hege received a BA in music with honors from Wesleyan University, CT and an MA in music composition from Mills College, CA. In 2014, she completed her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University where she studied embodied cognition theory and musical meaning. She has composed for film, installation art, dance, and concert settings. Since 2008, Hege has composed musical scores for choreographer Carrie Ahern. The New York Times praised her score for Ahern’s SenSate as “convincing” and “strangely environmental.” Influenced by her deep listening practice, her latest compositions lie somewhere between ritual, music, and theater with some homemade instruments thrown in for good measure.
Austin Yip
Co-founder, Bovo Music
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As a composer and interdisciplinary artist, Austin Yip’s works investigate the relationship between literature and sound, the interplay between acoustic sound and electronics, as well as the meaning of connotation and denotation through musical and visual means. Recent works include “Por Por” (2019-2022), a chamber opera in Cantonese; “Koto” (2019), a chamber theatre work inspired by Yasunari Kawabata’s novel of the same title; “City Beats” (2019), a work for harpsichord, electronics and video that challenges musical connotation; “Miles Upon Miles” (2018), a work for amplified violin and electronics that juxtaposes violin and Xinjiang Uyghur Muqam; “Project ‘Ballet de la nuit’: Eurydice” (2017), an hour-long electroacoustic work that investigates on the 17th century’s cross-casting tradition; and “Metamorphosis” (2016), an orchestral work that portrays Kafka’s novel musically.
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Frequently presented at musical festivals, Yip’s works have been performed worldwide, examples include the MacDowell National Benefit, ISCM World New Music Days (Beijing 2018, Sydney 2010), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (2018/2021), Seoul International Computer Music Festival (2018), Asian Composers League Conference and Festival (Japan 2010/2017, Vietnam 2016, Singapore 2013), World Saxophone Congress (France 2015, Scotland 2012), Intimacy of Creativity (2012) and many more.
Yip is a MacDowell Fellow (as a Gardner & Vail Read Fellow), and also the recipient of CASH Golden Sail Music Award, HKADC Award for Young Artist (Music), New Music USA Creator Fund, Chou’s Annual Composition Commission Award, James Kitagawa Memorial Music Scholarship, Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholarship, Henry Holbrook Scholarship, James King Scholarship, Eisner Prize, Milton C. Witzel Memorial Prize, University Postgraduate Fellowship and Rayson Huang Scholarship. Yip received his master and doctorate degree in music composition at the University of Hong Kong, and a bachelor degree at the University of California, Berkeley.
Yip’s works are published by Donemus (Netherlands), ABRSM (UK), BabelScores (France), Ablaze Records (US), Navona Records (US), Hugo Production and Hong Kong Composers Guild.
Yip is the Co-Founder of Bovo Music, a platform dedicated to next-generation music creation and AI tools.