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Pour plus d'informations en français, veuillez visiter notre page web à ce lien : https://www.cirmmt.org/fr/events/distinguished-lectures/02-nov-2026-braasch*Veuillez noter que cette conférence se déroulera en anglais.
This Distinguished Lecture will take place in Tanna Schulich Hall (527 Sherbrooke O) and will be followed by a catered reception in the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building lobby.
This event is free and open to the public and no registration is required for this event.
Abstract
Auralization is the process of rendering audible spaces using computational models, acoustic measurements, and dry sound sources. Designed as an architectural acoustics tool to validate spaces before they are built, it has become a common tool in sound recording and virtual reality. This talk focuses on taking this idea further by (re-)creating immersive music experiences, where musical content and social context play a central role. To this end, we designed the CRAIVE-Lab at RPI with a rounded‑rectangle screen geometry spanning a 12x10 sqm user area, 8 front video projectors, and a 128-channel wave field synthesis system behind the microperforated screen. Tracking devices and two additional rings for higher-order ambisonics complement the system. Our project started with recreating the Dan Harpole Cistern with its iconic 45 seconds of reverberation for Pauline Oliveros' 80th birthday concert at RPI's Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) and has grown since then, including a study on the three generations of Leipzig's Gewandhaus, each home to inaugural music at the time featuring the work of Beethoven, Grieg, and many others. We also created a database for anechoic contemporary jazz recordings. The talk will highlight a rapid ray-tracing model we developed to create wave fields from historic floor plans and binaural models used to analyze the results.
Biography
Jonas Braasch is a Professor in the School of Architecture at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he teaches in the Graduate Program in Architectural Acoustics and, as a member of RPI’s Future of Computing Institute, directs the CRAIVE-Lab, an immersive classroom for data perceptualization and multimodal interaction research. Jonas began his career as a doctoral student of Jens Blauert, working on spatial hearing, and later with Christian Ahrens on the history and acoustics of free‑reed organ pipes at Ruhr‑Universität Bochum. After two years at McGill University (2004–2005), he joined RPI in Troy, NY. Jonas collaborated closely with Pauline Oliveros on Deep Listening, human–machine improvisation, and auralization systems for live performance. Through this artistic research, he developed his Hyperspecialization practice, using single‑, double‑, and free‑reed brass and flute sound generators to create an expanded palette of timbres and performance techniques for the soprano saxophone body. From 2022 to 2024, he served as Acting Director of RPI’s Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC). He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and serves as an Associate Editor for Psychoacoustics for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
For more information, see our website: https://www.cirmmt.org/en/events/distinguished-lectures/02-nov-2026-braasch
Thank you to our partners:
McGill, UdeM, UdeS, ÉTS, FRQ, and CFI
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Event venue
527 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, Canada, Quebec H3A1E3
Tickets
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