Karya, a new sequencer, notation, and language

Abstract: Karya is a music sequencer. Its main goal is to let you write a high level score which is then realized to expressive and idiomatic instrumental parts, primarily for computer realization. It uses its own score format. One way to look at it is a 2D language for expressing music along with an editor for that language. The score language has a built-in library of notation and has basic means for defining new notation, but more complicated notation is defined in Haskell. The idea is to have a standard library, but also be able to define notation specific to your score. The editor is graphical but also uses a Haskell REPL for configuration, automation, and extension. Recently I've been experimenting with driving physical models developed by the NESS research project, and I'll also be presenting some of the results from that. For more, see the overview online.

Bio: Evan Laforge writes: I attended CalArts as a composition major, but with a special interest in Balinese and Javanese music. After graduation, I lived in Indonesia for a few years, studying and performing. After returning to the US, I've continued to play in Balinese music groups, such as Sekar Jaya and Gadung Kasturi in Berkeley and Richmond respectively, and meanwhile taken up studying Carnatic vocal and mridangam. Meanwhile, I worked at Google, initially in hardware, writing software for datacenter management, and later in maps, writing software to process and edit road networks. I'm interested in natural languages, programming languages, and musical notation, in various kinds of traditional musics and instruments, in sound synthesis and physical modeling, and in software correctness, proof systems, and type theory.