Spoke as the only academic at The Economist's annual "Technology for Change Asia" summit and shared insights on AI and the creative economy (more details in the HKU Arts Faculty feature).

Delivered a keynote at a satellite event for ISMIR 2026 (Abu Dhabi), the premier and largest research venue for scholars and industry practitioners in the field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR).

Launched and co-directed (with Mr. Jonathan Serbin) a brand new initiative "Music Entrepreneurship and Popular Practice (MePoP)" under the Faculty of Arts of the University of Hong Kong. Official website here. Press release here.

Launched and co-edited (with Prof. Thomas Hodgson) a new journal Music and Data, published by the University of California Press. Official website here. Press release here.

Delivered a public lecture, “When AI Creates: Ethics and Economics,” co-hosted by Asia Society Hong Kong Center (ASHK) and the Asian Cultural Council Hong Kong (ACCHK). More info here. 

Gave a keynote speech, “Arguments that Matter: Valuing Creative AI,” at the Fourth Workshop on Ethical Considerations in Creative applications of Computer Vision (EC3V), Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), Seattle, WA.

Gave invited talk, “AI Music, Deskilling, and the Ethics of Minimal Effort in Art,”​ at Charting New Frontiers in AI and Society Conference, AI & Humanity Lab (HKU Philosophy) & Programme on Artificial Intelligence and the Law (HKU Law), University of Hong Kong and Critical & Creative Digital Dynamics: A Symposium on AI & Digital Innovations for Inter-art Chamber Music Practices, School of Advanced Study, University of London​.

Gave invited talk, “Music + AI: Critical inquiry, interdisciplinarity, and the dilemmas of nonprofit entrepreneurship,”​ at Music + Data Symposium, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
 
Organized & Programmed AI, Music, and Creativity: At a Crossroads. International Symposium & Rayson Huang Lectures 2023/24, Faculty of Arts, The University of Hong Kong. (An international, dual-sited symposia in coordination with the Music + Data Symposium at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music)

Invited Panelist, “Ecosystems for Music Production” and “AI & Ethics,” at AI in Music - Agency, Performance, Production and Perception (Symposium), Project KISS [Eng. Artificial Intelligence Service and Systems], Trossingen, Germany.

Featured as a cover story in the Nov 2023 issue of HKU Bulletin. Read more in “A Challenge for Creatives.”

Gave invited talk, “An Inter/Transdisciplinary Dialogue: From AI Song Contest, Collaborative Songwriting, to Critical Technology Studies,” at Google (Montreal Office), Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Co-author: Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang.

Delivered a talk as part of Magenta Interactive at Google (Magenta Team), Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Co-author: Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang.

Gave invited talk, “Exploring machine learning, artificial creativity and human musicality (Workshop),” at Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Co-author: Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang.

Published article: Huang, Holzapfel, Sturm and Kaila (2023). Beyond Diverse Datasets: Responsible MIR, Interdisciplinarity, and the Fractured Worlds of Music. Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 43–59. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/tismir.141. This is an invited extension of our 2021 ISMIR paper, with mostly new materials.

Gave invited talk, “Democratizing Music?: Towards a Political Economy of Music AI,” at the Online Workshop on Music & Audio Processing (link),  the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Dated June 19, 2023. 

Invited to serve on the Ethics Committee for the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR).

Accepted paper for presentation (co-authored with Cheng-Zhi Anna Huang), “AI Song Contest Revisited: Collaborative Songwriting, Technological Ethics, and an Inter/Transdisciplinary Dialogue,” at the AMS (American Musicological Society)/SMT (Society for Music Theory) 2023 Joint Annual Meeting, taken place between 9-12 November 2023 in Denver, Colorado (link).

Invited visit to Sony CSL in Paris, France as a Director of the AI Song Contest (AISC) Foundation (Dutch: stichting), as Sony CSL hosted the inaugural AISC Artist Residency (April 17-23, 2023).  

Served as an invited expert juror at the 2023 Human & Machine Song Contest, hosted by Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley. Dated April 22, 2023.

Featured in a Scientific American article/podcast about the state of music AI and its impact on musicians (dated March 27, 2023: “If AI Starts Making Music on Its Own, What Happens to Musicians?” link)

Gave invited lecture, “Encountering Music AI: Musicological Inquiry, Interdisciplinarity, and Nonprofit Entrepreneurship,” at the Graduate Institute of Musicology at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Dated March 17, 2022.

Accepted article for publication, “Beyond Diverse Datasets: Responsible MIR, Interdisciplinarity, and the Fractured Worlds of Music,” in the Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (TISMIR). Huang, Holzapfel, Sturm and Kaila. Forthcoming in 2023.

Invited to serve as an expert judge for The Ai Music Generation Challenge 2023 (more info here). 

Gave invited lecture, “Encountering Music AI: Musicological Reflections and Beyond,” at the Department of Music at Northeastern University (as part of the Leading Voices Speaker Series), Boston, MA. Dated November 16, 2022.

Presented paper, “Democratizing Music?: Artificial Intelligence, Artistic Labor, and Technological Ethics,” at the AMS-SEM-SMT 2022 Joint Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (link). The paper appeared as part of an organized panel “Ghosts in the Machine: Technological Disturbances, Deformations, and Sonic Epistemologies,” co-organized by Rujing Stacy Huang and Jacob Sunshine and was sponsored by the SEM Sound Studies Section. Dated November 10-13, 2022.

Published Chapter, “Global Ethics – From Philosophy to Practice: A Culturally Informed Ethics of Music AI in Asia” (Huang, Holzapfel & Sturm), in Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem (Routledge 2022; ed. Clancy).

Gave invited Spotlight Talk, “On Musical Labor, Talent, and the ‘Deskilled’ Artist in the Age of AI,” at the 3rd Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC 2022), hosted from Japan and held online (link). Dated September 13-15, 2022.

Elected Co-Chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) Sound Studies Section for the 2022-2024 term (link).

Elected as Co-Chair, Sound Studies Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM)

Offered and co-taught new course “Music Business (MUSI2086)” at the HKU Department of Music, in collaboration with Mr. Jonathan Serbin, Co-President of Warner Music Asia 

Organized and co-hosted “AI & Creation Day 2022” (AI Song Contest 2022 Award Ceremony), which took place during the Wallifornia Music & Innovation Summit in Liège, Belgium.

Organized panel (“Ghosts in the Machine: Technological Disturbances, Deformations, and Sonic Epistemologies”) and individual paper (“Democratizing Music?: Artificial Intelligence, Artistic Labor, and Technological Ethics”), accepted to the 2022 Joint Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS), Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), and Society for Music Theory (SMT).

Invited to speak at MUSAiC Festival 2022 (link), taken place during November 22-24, 2022 in Stockholm, Sweden. 

Joined the Department of Music at the University of Hong Kong as Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow (three-year term)

Presented peer-reviewed paper, “De-centering the West: East Asian Philosophies and the Ethics of Applying Artificial Intelligence to Music” (Huang, Sturm and Holzapfel), at the 22nd International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR 2021). Paper was selected as a Best Paper Candidate, and was awarded Best Special Call Paper Prize.

Presented peer-reviewed paper, “Reframing ‘Aura’: Authenticity in the Application of Ai to Irish Traditional Music” (Huang and Sturm), at the 2nd Conference on AI Music Creativity (AIMC 2021).

Organized and led panel, “Sounding Difference: Music AI across Cultures,” at the AI Song Contest 2021 Award Ceremony (“AI & Creation Day”), which took place during the Music & Innovation Summit by hosted by Wallifornia MusicTech.

Gave invited talk, “Nationalizing Music Theory: Yayue Scale and its Revival in Twenty-First-Century China,” at the Department of Music at Columbia University in New York (link), and at the Division of Speech, Music and Hearing (TMH) at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.