By Joelle Carson

An architect, a singer, and a multimedia composer walk into a music technology and computation classroom … can you guess their final group project topic?

Hint: The class is 21M.569 Algorithms and Interactions in Human-AI Partnerships, which debuted in fall 2024 and will be offered in the new, multidisciplinary MIT Music Technology and Computation Graduate Program. Its instructor is Anna Huang SM ’08, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor of Music & Theater Arts and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Huang is also a composer who created the machine-learning model Coconet that powered the Bach Doodle, Google’s first AI-powered doodle (an interactive variation of the Google logo on its homepage), in 2019.

Eran Egozy ’93, SM ’95, Professor of the Practice, looks forward to building the music technology faculty with more multidisciplinary experts like Huang and attracting applicants with unique interests. “We’re getting inquiries from potential applicants who are musicians or composers and also have a strong technical sense and computational knowledge,” he says. “It will be super cool to see what those people can do when they’re on campus, and how it changes the musical and research landscape here.”