Coming up: European Researcher’s Night in Bologna, Sept 29

From April 8 to May 6 Polifonia organised their own version of the Eurovision Song Contest, the Polifonia Song Contest: musicians of all levels were challenged to create the ‘soundtrack of our history’ by using samples from the rich collections in the Polifonia project. Today we can announce the winning song.

After four years of development work, the Polifonia project team is excited to present the results. The consortium, consisting of 10 partners from Italy, the Netherlands, France, England and Ireland launches the music discoverability platform ‘Polifonia Web Portal’. In addition, the researchers and developers have also unlocked and linked other music data, developed tools and software that will help musicologists take steps forward in their research on European musical heritage.

The Polifonia project formally ended on April 30, which means that the tools and software developed within this 4-year-project are released and ready for use. Today we look at ‘Patterns UI’.

Polifonia Song Contest is two weeks in, and will continue for another two weeks. Have you downloaded the sample pack yet?

Are you the type of musician that is inspired by old sounds, such as cheerful Irish folk melodies, the majestic resonance of pipe organ concerts, and the timeless chimes echoing from century-old Italian bell towers? Then ‘Polifonia Song Contest’ is your challenge!

The consortium is preparing for the last face-to-face consortium meeting of the Polifonia project in April 2024.

Polifonia is known for its strong links with academia and is pleased to present some highlights in its involvement in research and associated conferences.

In 2024, Paul Mulholland, Naomi Barker and Paul Warren (The Open University, U.K) are continuing their experiment investigating how different kinds of music influence the appreciation of an artwork; and to what extent the same kind of sense-making processes are used when viewing artwork and when listening to music. To do this, the researchers are looking for more participants. They have now automated the process so that participants can complete the experiment online without the involvement of an experimenter.

During the last project meeting, the Polifonia consortium extensively discussed how to foster the impact of the project in academia and beyond. How to make the output of Polifonia sustainable after the lifetime of the project is one important aspect. But fostering re-usability does not end by long-term preservation of certain assets (such as data and tools). In Polifonia Research Ecosystem – Impact of a project. A webinar on Data re-use and workflows, we will discuss how we ensure that more fluid assets such as interfaces, but also experiences in setting up and executing workflows via those interfaces, become reproducible and reuseable.

For the Polifonia project, the Central Institute for Cataloging and Documentation (ICCD) of the Italian Ministry of Culture is carrying out activities on the historical bell heritage. The ICCD has also initiated a process of documentation of the practices and knowledge associated with bell production through collaboration with historical Italian foundries.