Conference series exploring the intersection of music and AI technologies across diverse musical genres, their intermedial adaptations and real-world applications
Since 2024, I have organised two landmark academic conferences on AI and music: the first, a Symposium on AI & Digital Innovations for Inter-art Chamber Music Practices held at the University of London (June 2024); and the second, an interdisciplinary symposium on AI, voice and vocal music at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (March 2025). Both events attracted significant interest from scholars, students, musicians, musicologists, technologists and industry professionals, facilitating productive knowledge exchange across disciplines and sectors. This series will continue through future events. Watch this space!
Next: 2027 Manchester Conference on Emotion AI, Creativity, and Trust
Conference title: Emotion, Empathy, Trust & Creativity in AI: Intercultural and Multimodal Approaches to Human–AI Futures from Arts & Humanities Perspectives
Date: 22-23 April, 2027 (Call for papers and performances open soon in June, 2026)
Location: Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester
Fully funded by the Hallsworth Conference Award.
Convenors:
- Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina (Principal organiser, University of Manchester)
- Prof Ricardo Climent (University of Manchester)
- Prof Julia Handl (University of Manchester)
- Dr Riza Batista-Navarro (University of Manchester)
- Prof Marion Schmid (University of Edinburgh)
- Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce (University of Edinburgh)
- Dr Caterina Moruzzi (University of Edinburgh)
- Prof Daniel Hjorth (Lund University)
- Tanguy Pocquet (University of Manchester)
- Harry O’brien (University of Manchester)
- Ping-Ting Xiao (University of Manchester)
Description:
Digital media and networked technologies have merged technical, communicative and artistic media into interconnected systems, opening new pathways for perceiving and understanding the world. This shift has transformed how we engage with others’ lived experiences through digital infrastructures. While AI has expedited this evolution, our interactions with intelligent systems in educational, professional and everyday contexts remain episodic and transactional rather than sustained, meaningful connection. This deficit in productive human–machine interaction stems from a perceived absence of trust, empathy, and creative agency in AI systems, and from the lack of design principles, datasets, and frameworks needed to support emotionally intelligent and culturally responsive AI. To address these gaps, this conference invites critical perspectives and creative interventions to explore the conditions through which creativity, empathy, and trust might emerge in AI-driven digital futures. Bridging emotion studies with affective computing, it foregrounds underutilised arts and humanities methodologies to shape interdisciplinary, intercultural and multimodal approaches to designing, evaluating and theorising next-generation ‘emotion AI’ aligned with diverse human values. Through presentations, panels and creative showcases, we’ll examine how emotionally attuned AI systems can support participation and digital inclusion, while nurturing care, well-being, social connection and collective creativity. The event will generate insights to inform future Emotion AI policy and praxis in dialogue with society at large.
2025: Edinburgh Conference on AI & Digital Innovations for Voice and Vocal Music
2024: London conference on AI & Digital Innovations for Chamber Music Practices
Dr Alexandra Huang-Kokina 