London’s Music Tech Fest Comes to Boston

By Kira Grunenberg

With a plethora of digital devices and music players perforating modern life, you’d think that the relationship between music and technology would be a more widely discussed topic. Despite the many startups that merge tech and music, a dedicated platform that brings together the growing, lucrative music technology sector is still quite rare.

This is where London’s Music Tech Fest swoops in and fills an oddly under-attended void, at least as far as an indsutry-specialized crowd is concerned. Founded in April 2012 by Michela Magas, co-founder of design research lab Stromatolite,  Music Tech Fest is just that: a gathering devoted to the convergence of music and tech, regardless of the industry sector. Researchers, performers, hackers, business innovators, and technology aficionados — any angle of industry profession steeped in music tech can be found at this event. During the nascent two years of the event, Music Tech Fest has already garnered the time and attention of many companies and influencers alike. (We’ve previously featured Synesthesia, an app which was developed by Stromatolite and is a sort of signature to Music Tech Fest.)

Coming into its third year, Music Tech Fest is going strong,  expanding the event to new locations outside of London and even outside of the EU. In late February, a branch of Music Tech Fest was hosted in Wellington, New Zealand at the local Microsoft Research Labs, and its next stop will be hosted this weekend at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Labs (referred to as the NERD labs!) in Boston, MA. Following Boston, the flagship festival will be held in London in May, with other “tour stops” scheduled for Los Angeles, Berlin, Paris and Brazil.

Thus far, Music Tech Fest: Boston is already shaping up to host an impressive lineup. Some confirmed attendees include:

Dave Haynes (fmr. SoundCloud)

Paul Lamere (Echo Nest)

Berklee’s Rethink Music Initiative

Paris’s IRCAM-Centre Pompidou

The Music Technology Group of UPF Barcelona

…with many more companies, as well as newly developed instruments and digital projects set for presenting demonstrations. A live link-up with the British Library is also on the agenda, along with the expectedly exciting hackathon, hosted by Jonathan Marmor (also of The Echo Nest).

You can follow along with all the Music Tech Fest activities on Twitter and get involved with the conversation with the hastag, #mtfboston.

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1.

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