A University of Kansas research team will celebrate a new book that sheds light on musical technology designed for people with physical limitations.
KU’s Adaptive Use Musical Instrument research team has been working with community members since 2011, according to member Ray Mizumura-Pence. The team’s research is around AUMI, software that allows users to play sounds and create musical phrases through their movements.
AUMI — free, open access software — aims to make music accessible for people of all abilities.
A new collective editorial, “Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument,” features several stories from AUMI users.
During a celebration at the Lawrence Public Library, the KU research team will celebrate the book’s release and discuss Lawrence’s contributions to AUMI progress. Attendees at the celebration will also be able to try out the technology for themselves.
A project by the late composer and humanitarian Pauline Oliveros, “the AUMI was designed as a liberating and affordable alternative to the constraints of instruments created only for normative bodies, thus opening a doorway for people of all ages, genders, abilities, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds to access artistic practice with others,” according to the eBook version’s overview statement.
The book release celebration is scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8 at the Lawrence Public Library auditorium, 707 Vermont St. It’s free to attend and open to the public, and light refreshments will be offered.
Some of the book’s contributing authors will be present at the celebration, according to the event flyer. The Pre-Pandemic Ensemble, a musical group part of the AUMI research team at KU, is also set to perform.
The Raven Book Store will be present to sell physical copies of the book. It’s also available for free online reading on the University of Michigan Press eBook Collection’s website, fulcrum.org.
The AUMI research team at KU is part of the AUMI Consortium, an international research group, according to its KU website, aumi.ku.edu. Each member institution has a particular area of focus; KU’s is interdisciplinary arts and improvisation.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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