World-first music event

A technique, described as ‘telematic music’, removed time and space barriers to connect six musicians through the use of a high-speed broadband connection. The result was the most distant telematic musical performance in the world, to date.

Monash University’s Monash Undergraduate Research Projects Abroad (MURPA) internship program enabled Faculty of Information Technology honours student, Mr Edgar Kautzner, to deliver a live violin performance in Melbourne as part of an ensemble of six musicians divided geographically by an astounding 15,000 kilometres.

Edgar Kautzner conceived the idea with fellow violinist and telematic music PhD student, Ben Smith, from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois.

Edgar Kautzner performed from Monash University’s Clayton campus, flautist Liliana Goldman Carriso was at NCSA, Illinois and, at a separate location in Illinois - the Krannert Center for Performing Arts - was pianist John Toenjes, saxophonist Drew Whiting, cellist Ben Leddy and violinist Ben Smith.

“Due to the great distances involved it isn’t possible to remove minor latency or audio-visual delays, however this is a powerful communications technology, which is highly successful at bringing artists together,” Mr Kautzner said.

“Through musicality alone, rather than by visual cues from a conductor or from fellow musicians, we were able to not only work with, but embrace the latency.”

“We were able to create beautiful abstract melodies with layered improvised rhythms, where the latency separated musicians by a single beat,” he said.

“This allowed audiences in each location to experience a unique, quite beautiful version of the performance.”

Monash e-Research Centre technician, Stephen Welsh, reduced the audio latency to less than a quarter of a second and achieved echo-cancellation through the strategic positioning of microphones and speakers.

The MURPA program enables third year students, such as Mr Kautzner, to each undertake a research project while immersed in a prestigious, international research laboratory.