Esteban Maestre defends his PhD thesis entitled “Modeling Instrumental Gestures: An Analysis/Synthesis Framework for Violin Bowing" on Thursday 12th of Nomvember 2009 at 15:00h in the Auditorium Mercè Rodoreda at the Ciutadella Campus of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27, Barcelona).

The members of the jury are: Josep Blat (UPF), Rafael Ramirez (UPF), Marcelo M. Wanderley (McGill University), Vesa Valimaki (Helsinki University of Technology),José A. Rodriguez-Fonollosa (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya).

This dissertation presents a comprehensive data-driven study for computationally addressing the problem of modeling the performer’s role of transforming the discrete information appearing in an annotated musical score into the continuous physical actions driving sound production in bowed string practice. The dissertation introduces and validates a systematic approach to the acquisition, representation, modeling, and synthesis of bowing patterns in violin classical performance. Synthetic bowing parameter controls obtained from a written score are used to drive sound generation by means of both a physical model and a sample-based synthesizer.