Designing Sound Futures (DSF) brings together a transdisciplinary York University research team, community-based partners (Community Music Schools of Toronto; Kwartzlab Makerspace; Blurring the Boundaries Arts), industry partners (System80, Hale), and academic partners, including the TMU Re/Lab and the Canadian Accessible Music Instruments Network. Our mandate: challenge exclusionary boundaries in music education, the arts, and culture and:
- Transforming educational, community, and industry relationships while creating new forms of design, music and participation.
- Creating new forms of music and new pedagogies informed by EDI principles — through community-led and disability-led design (bell et al, 2019) of adapted and new instruments, including the BAMMsynth (Building Access in Music Making) analog semi-modular synthesizer.
- Supporting disability-led design of interface properties, controllers, and adapted/new instrument design, including MIDI 2.0 tools we are developing.
- Developing toolkits with cutting-edge materials that can be channeled into community-based and community-led social innovation.
Team Members:
- Kurt Thumlert, Education
- Andreas Kitzmann, Humanities
- Melanie Baljko, Engineering
- Casey Mecija, Communications & Culture
- James Andrew Smith, Engineering
- Bil Tzerpos, Engineering
- Jason Nolan, Re/Lab
- Richard Marsella, Director CMST
Designing Sound Futures is supported by York’s Catalyzing Interdisciplinary Research Clusters (CIRC) initiative.
Project website: Designing Sound Futures
