Welcome to Music in the Global Village!

Over the next few days, we will focus on a series of critical issues surrounding the theory and practice of networked music through a combination of brief presentations, extended group discussions, and concert performances. I hope that we will use this time to document the range of current thinking and practice, to identify critical technical, design, and musical issues facing the field, and to brainstorm ways in which to address those issues. I also hope that this event will be the beginning of an ongoing, growing conversation about networked music.

Andrea, Georg, and I invited you to participate in this conversation both because of the value of your work to the field and because of the unique perspective you have to contribute. I encourage you to speak up and make your voice heard throughout the conference. We will work hard to find ways to include everyone in the conversation.

Thank you for your enthusiastic participation in Music in the Global Village. I look forward to spending time with you and learning from you this week.

Sincerely,
Jason Freeman

Center for Music Technology, Georgia Tech,
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

I have the pleasure to welcome you to the second edition of the Music in the Global Village conference – a very unusual gathering focussing on the musical implications of Marshall Mc Luhan’s 1960’s statement about the global embrace. The emerging field of network music performance brings up various technical, artistic, ethical and philosophical issues which can’t be dealt with in the way of the typical paper session. On the contrary, this conference attempts to facilitate the intellectual discourse by breaking up the ritualized delivery of ideas and providing a framework in which nearly 30 of the finest representatives in the field will share their views, critically examine current practices and sketch out the next decades of network music performance.

We are very much looking forward to meet you in Budapest.

Georg Hajdu
Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg

I am happy to host the second Music in the Global Village Conference. Building on the success of the first edition, this year’s conference continues the debate around creativity in network music, but in a modified form. The final discussion of the 2007 conference proved to be such a positive experience for all of us, that it has directly informed the structure, organization and hopefully the athmosphere of the present conference, for which we propose much more open structure facilitating participation and dialogue. I would like to add my welcome to those of Jason and Georg, and I look forward to your stimulating contributions to the pioneering fields of the theory and practice of networked music performance.

Andrea Szigetvári
Hungarian Computer Music Foundation