Departments
The STMS Lab
Science and Technology of Music and Sound (IRCAM, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, ministère de la Culture)
IRCAM provides a unique framework to welcome and coordinate various scientific points of view on the musical phenomena, including physics (acoustics, mechanics), signal processing, information technology, cognitive psychology, and musicology. Activities within the UMR-STMS Joint Research lab are structured by themes, entrusted to specialized teams. Each team assumes responsibility for all the work carried out within its domain: research, software development, contracts, collaborative projects, and diffusion. The UMR STMS research lab brings together 100 people (researchers, engineers, technicians, administratif personnel) and welcomes another 40 interns and guest researchers every year.
Education, Cultural Outreach and Resource Center
This department offers—at IRCAM or elsewhere—an ensemble of rendezvous, cultural outreach programs, professional training courses, and higher-level programs intended for school groups, high school and university students, and music professionals. The primary missions of the department are encouraging meetings between the public and contemporary creation, enabling a young public to fully understand musical innovation through experimentation and creative processes and training professionals in research fields from our labs and studios.
See our full offer: training and cultural outreach programs
It also includes the Resource Center whose the vocation is to compile and diffuse reference corpuses on contemporary music, on art/science/technology relationships, and on musical research. All the institute’s knowledge and creation can be found in the resource center: archives of concerts and conferences, scores, scholarly scientific articles and popular science articles, and more. These resources are available to the public through:
- The multimedia libray (open Tuesday through Friday, from 2 to 5:30pm)
- Databases found on our specialized website: Resource Center
Creation & Diffusion
Creation at IRCAM, an essential pillar of the institute’s activity, attracts artists from a wide range of disciplines, mobilized by research on sound and music to the studios under the place Stravinsky. Through the diversity of the formats and aesthetic approaches, today IRCAM is an indispensible player in music, but also in the performing arts (musical theater, opera, dance, circus arts, etc.) and digital arts (installations). The multitude of projects is organized through the joint work of the institute’s artistic direction and production departments.
From an idea to the production, from the premiere to the tour, in relationship with the research teams or the education department, the process of creation and artistic residencies expose the general public to IRCAM’s activities during the concert season in Paris, throughout France, and abroad. The artistic direction, in close collaboration with the production team, has created a network of partners in France and internationally, necessary for production and tours. The artistic direction also coordinates IRCAM’s multidisciplinary festival ManiFeste held every year in June and its academy intended for emerging talents, an academy that brings together a hundred young artists for composition workshops or In Vivo programs. The production team’s logistical and technical skills enable the creation and follow-up of a repertoire of works disseminated and transmitted well beyond the date and venue of their premieres.
Follow the artists in the studios Discover ManiFeste and its academy
Le Forum
IRCAM is committed to artistic research, serving music, visual art, digital, and performing arts creators. They are found in the IRCAM Forum community, a community that touches other professional sectors as well—sound design and engineering, teaching and performance.