Huawei announce plans to finish Schubert’s unfinished symphony with AI
By James Herring on Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei have announced their ‘most daring and creative collaboration’ yet: finishing Schubert’s famous unfinished symphony No. 8, with the help of the power of Artificial Intelligence.
A teaser post on the company site reads ‘we’ve challenged our AI to finish this iconic and intriguing work that has remained unfinished for nearly 200 years’ – the outcome will be revealed in February.
Analysing the timbre, pitch and meter of the existing first and second movements of the symphony, Huawei’s AI model then generated the melody for the final, missing third and fourth movements.
The company then worked with Emmy award-winning composer, Lucas Cantor to arrange an orchestral score from the melody that stayed true to the style of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8.
The company said ‘Last year, we taught our AI to drive, to translate humpback whales into love songs and to speak sign language with StorySign , thus revolutionising the lives of children with deafness.’
For their latest project, Huawei hopes to show the positive impact of technology on culture.
The final, Huawei-completed piece will be performed at London’s Cadogan Hall on Monday 4th February.
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