Explore every episode of the podcast FLIS: Podcast About Music and Listening

It’s possible Chopin would use AI tools to work on orchestration of his pieces.

In this episode, the FLIS duo and their guests discuss Chopin (clearly!), language models, but also reggaeton, country, swing and Drake.

Can artificial intelligence be musical? How could AI tools aid the jurors or participants of the Chopin Competition? How should algorithmic work be credited in new art? Prof. Aleksandra Przegalińska & Dr. Ewa Chamczyk are our guides through the world of generative artificial intelligence.

Aleksandra Przegalińska is a philosopher, the vice-rector for Innovation and AI at Kozminski University in Warsaw, a scientific advisor to CampusAI, and a Senior Research Associate at Center for Labour and Just, Harvard University. She is the author of many books, including ‘Sztuczna Inteligencja. Nieludzka, arcyludzka‘ (‘Artificial Intelligence: Inhuman, Extremely Human’) and ‘Converging Minds: The Creative Potential of Collaborative AI’ (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2024), co-authored with Tamilla Triantoro. Ewa Chamczyk is a musicologist, the co-founder and director of the publishing press AI Books by Campus AI, and an editor at ‘hAI Magazine’ – the first Polish magazine devoted to artificial intelligence.

Chapters: 

(00:00) Introduction

(01:41) Algorithm & Their Influence on Listening Practices

(06:12) AI As Jury at the Chopin Competition? 

(11:28) Is AI Musical? 

(15:48) Can ChatGPT Become a Source of Support for Contestants?

(22:20) AI-generated Music We Like 

(27:44) Forged Music & Musical Fake News 

(36:30) Crediting AI in New Art

(41:10) If Chopin Was Alive, He’d Gladly Use New Technologies and/or Produce Mazurka-based Reggaeton

Concept, production, host: Filip Lech, Izabela Smelczyńska
Jingiel: Izabela Smelczyńska
Narrators: Aleksandra Szkudłapska, Mark Bence
Translation: Natalia Sajewicz

In this episode, we discuss whether or not good taste exists (it doesn’t) and ponder whether to clap or not to clap when the music’s over. The joys & sorrows of serious music, the elite & mass combined in the Chopin Competition. Izabela Smelczyńska and Filip Lech talk to the music curator Michał Mendyk.

The guest of episode 3, Chopin season of the podcast FLIS is Michał Mendyk, curator, editor of the magazine ‘Ruch Muzyczny’, and publisher. We talk about music sociology, social conventions history, identity, and inclusivity. Admittedly, our conversation meandered, but we steered into fascinating territory. Spoiler alert: our guest doesn’t follow the Chopin Competition. He’s an exception, though – all our other guests in the series are avid listeners of the event.

Michał Mendyk is a music curator whose output includes the events Radykalna Kultura Polska (Radical Polish Culture, which combined archaic performance traditions of Polish folk music with postmodern avant-garde and pop sensibilities) and Opera dla Głuchych (Opera for the Deaf, a cycle focused on artistic praxis of the Deaf). Since 2008, Mendyk has been running the label Bôłt Records, publishing Middle- and Eastern-European composers (Polish, Lithuanian, and Romanian) and recordings of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (both original and remixed).

Concept, production, host: Filip Lech, Izabela Smelczyńska
Jingiel: Izabela Smelczyńska
Narrators: Aleksandra Szkudłapska, Mark Bence
Translation: Natalia Sajewicz

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(03:17) The (Hidden) Joys & Sorrows of Serious Music

(08:14) Sacred Music, Cult Composer

(14:13) The Chopin Competition – Elite & Mass

(18:40) Should Poles Be the Best at Playing Chopin?

(21:18) Music accessibility – from Gutenberg to Streamingu

(25:58) Social Conventions & Music

(33:28) On (Nonexistent) Good Taste

(39:36) Can Classical Music Be Inclusive?

‘That’s a tough one’ – replied our guest asked if the Chopin Competition leaves room for humour.

‘I sometimes like to sit on the balcony, behind the jury, so that I can observe their reactions. Once I saw a juror fall asleep during the performance. His head was nodding as he dozed off and at some point he leaned on another juror, which woke him up. I won’t publicly say who it was, but I can reveal it to you guys once we finish recording’, says Marcin Bogucki, the guest of episode of the Chopin season. We told each other some musical jokes and memes, but also discussed the performative aspect of the Chopin Competition and whether or not the famous contest can be compared to the Eurovision.

Dr. Marcin Bogucki (Theatre and Performance Section, the Institute of Polish Culture at Warsaw University) is a cultural studies scholar and a musicologist. His research interests include opera, cultural history of music, including the Chopin Competition but also the Eurovision. He is the co-author (alongside Ada Arendt, Paweł Majewski, and Kornelia Sobczak) of the book ‘The Chopin Games. History of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in 1927-2015’. He also wrote ‘Teatr operowy Petera Sellarsa. Inscenizacje Händla i Mozarta z lat 80. XX wieku’ (‘Opera Theatre of Peter Sellars. Händl and Mozart Stagings in the 1980s’) and ‘Szaleństwo w operze’ (‘Madness at the Opera’). Bogucki belongs to the Polish section of The Organisation Générale des Amateurs de l'Eurovision and to The Polish Society for Theatre Research.

Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:05) ‘I am well and happy’. What We Know about Chopin’s Sense of Humour

(05:12) Humorous Motifs In Classical Music

(10:38) Serious Music Memefied

(15:00) Favourite Jokes – Catharsis

(24:04) Is the Chopin Competition Funny?

(28:54) Performativity of the Competition

(34:38) Stereotypisation of the Participants

(36:53) Theatre or Natural Expression? Gestures at the Competition

(39:10) Blind Audition – Conclave for the Jurors?

(42:30) Love for Chopin

Credits:

Concept, production, host: Filip Lech, Izabela Smelczyńska

Jingiel: Izabela Smelczyńska

Narrators: Aleksandra Szkudłapska, Mark Bence

Translation: Natalia Sajewicz

Graphic design: Paulina Ufnal / Hekla Studio

A Different Take on the Chopin Competition – we're excited to bring you season 2 of FLIS: podcast about music and listening. Our main focus is Frederic Chopin, but this week you'll learn a thing or two about Iga Świątek and Adam Małysz.

Dr Aneta Bartnicka-Michalska is the guest of the first episode. The philosopher and psychologist will tell us more about the minds of young musicians. How can they develop a sense of agency? What's the origin of stage fright? Can a win in the Chopin Competition turn into a burden?

Dr. Aneta Bartnicka-Michalska works at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw and . She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Polish Psychological Association, and the Polish Association of Human Development Psychology. In the next episodes of the series, we'll be discussing social and class divisions in the Philharmonic world, sense of humour, the Romantic notion of genius, and AI.

Chapters:
(00:00) Music Nightmares

(03:10) Competitions: Toiling for Your Dreams

(09:08) Healthy Rivalry

(11:27) Psychoeducation in Art School

(18:03) Sympathetic & Parasympathetic Nervous System

(29:05) Perfection or Mastery?

(32:41) The Competition Through Psychologist's Ears

(42:03) How to Stay Original

(54:11) How to Win
(58:53) Iga Świątek & Adam Małysz

Credits:

Concept, production, host: Filip Lech, Izabela Smelczyńska

Jingiel: Izabela Smelczyńska

Narrators: Aleksandra Szkudłapska, Mark Bence

Translation: Natalia Sajewicz

Graphic design: Paulina Ufnal / Hekla Studio