Listening In: Science that Resonates

Have you ever wondered what's happening in a musician's brain when they learn a new piece of music, and when they remember and play music they know really well? In my PhD research, I’m using EEG to investigate these questions, focusing on the influence of the structure of the music on these memory processes. In my talk, we’ll dive into topics such as music performance, expertise, and memory research. Along the way, we'll explore why studying musician performers might help us understand how all of us form and retain memories.

Nick is a Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, teaching at the interface of Organic Chemistry and Molecular Biology emphasising on student-student interaction and peer support of learning. He has an interest in supporting staff and students involved in teaching and learning to embed and evidence teaching excellence and innovation. Based at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Nick runs a comprehensive programme of Public Engagement with Research and Researchers, to provide different opportunities as possible for staff and students to discuss their work with a range of audiences.

This talk is about my OperAI: Future of Opera project, which pioneers AI-driven opera as an immersive, audience-responsive system. It integrates live neural audio synthesis, an adaptive AI accompanist, and an emotion engine that translates audience input into real-time musical and stage transformations. Through mobile interaction and intelligent staging, spectators co-create narrative outcomes alongside performers. This project redefines opera as a participatory, data-responsive art form for the 21st-century audience.

Musician and researcher Dr Henry McPherson reflects on recent collaboration with plant scientists and moss experts, sharing some examples of how we might learn to 'listen with' our tiny plant neighbours, the challenges and rewards of arts-science collaborations, and how musical skills might help us develop closer relationships with our more-than-human neighbours at a time of global environmental crisis.