SCO plans concert of AI-composed music as part of alliance with LYRA Lab

As videos generated by Sora AI continue to sweep the Internet, many people are again embracing the precise execution of artificial intelligence in creative tasks.

So are musicians at the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. The orchestra, founded in 1952, announced a new AI-composed concert to be performed in Shanghai in April, as part of its new strategic partnership with Tencent Music Entertainment Group's LYRA Lab.

"This is a bi-directional empowerment between technology and arts," said Luo Xiaoci, director of the orchestra.

"We fully anticipate the AI system will reflect rich and diverse music emotions, and explore new possibilities for music composition in traditional Chinese music. AI-composed music, re-invented through the performances of our musicians, will become rich, unique and artistic inspiring music that charms the audience."

She added, "Such distinct flavor and emotions are the desire of the heart and where the true music soul lies."

The new partnership will focus on cross-boundary collaboration between traditional culture and AI technology. LYRA Lab, launched by Tencent Music in 2021, is the company's first AI audio and video lab.

In 2022, Tencent Music released over 1,000 songs using AI-generated vocals and, among those songs, "Today" was streamed over 100 million times across the Internet.

"This partnership is the first of its kind between traditional Chinese music and artificial intelligence, and also a breakthrough of our development of traditional Chinese music digitization," said Zhou Wenjiang, head of LYRA Lab.

"We are proud to help innovate and promote traditional culture through this new partnership, and will continue to bring more professional and higher quality music with our advantages in technology and resources."

The new partnership also includes a dedicated page on the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra on the QQ Music app, also owned by Tencent.