Multiverse Symphony

By Eduardo R. Miranda

Quantum Computing, AI & Musical Creativity: A World Premiere on May 3rd, 2023, at the new ligeti center in Hamburg,

On May 3rd 2023, as part of the Ligeti-Festival at the Music and Theater University (HfMT), and the Inauguration of the new ligeti center in Hamburg, Miranda teamed up with the quantum technology and arts company, Moth, and the opus glitch_ performance-research lab, a project by the Contemporary Chamber Orchestra Elbe, to create Multiverse Symphony.

opus glitch_ A Performance-Research Experimental Lab:

Rafal Zalech, Violin // Katrin Szamatulski, Flute // Samuel Stoll, Horn // Jonathan Heilbron, Double Bass // Nora-Louise Müller, Clarinet // Ronan Whittern, Bassoon // Jakob Nierenz, Cello // Yalda Zamani, Conductor

Eduardo R. Miranda is a composer working at the crossroads of music, science, and new technologies. His background as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientist and a classically trained composer with early involvement in avant-garde pop informs his distinctive music. He has composed for BBC Radio 3, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Currently, he is a professor in computer music at the University of Plymouth and an associate researcher at Quantinum, where he is pioneering new approaches to musical composition with quantum computers. His latest books, Handbook of Artificial intelligence for Music and Quantum Computer Music, are published by Springer Nature.

Multiverse Symphony was composed with quantum computers, and its performance involves live interaction with quantum hardware via the Internet and features Q1Synth, a novel quantum computer musical instrument.

In the 20th century, pioneering composers changed the face of music through electronic technologies, and experiments with chance and determinism. For example, as early as the 1930s, Edgar Varèse varied the speed of turntables to produce distortions and collages. But it was not until the 1950s that significant new kinds of music began to emerge. In 1951, John Cage used an Oriental oracle to create Music of Changes for piano: he consulted the I Ching to make compositional decisions. And around the same time, Pierre Boulez composed Structures for two pianos. Every aspect of this piece was decided by pre-determined rules, which Boulez followed strictly. György Ligeti’s Artikulation, which is entirely electroacoustic, is another notable piece of this era. Ligeti synthesised sounds electronically. Then, he cut the recording tape into pieces and devised a method to compose with them, which is partly aleatoric and partly rule-based. With the advent of digital computers, composing like Varèse, Cage, Boulez, and Ligeti became mainstream. Nowadays, most composers are versed in programming computers to manipulate recordings and simulate rules and randomness. But computing technology is ever-evolving. And so is music.

A quantum computer deals with information encoded as quantum bits, or qubits. The qubit is to a quantum computer what a bit is to a digital one: it is a basic unit of information. In hardware, qubits live in the subatomic world. They are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics. Miranda programmed quantum computers to generate musical materials with which he composed Multiverse Symphony. He leveraged quantum mechanical phenomena such as superposition, entanglement, and interference to create music in ways that would be unfeasible using a standard digital computer.