1) New feature in Musica virtual library on-line: voice synthesis with hyperarticulation

From now, all the songs in French and in English that have a link to their text, but not yet a pronunciation sound file for this text, are benefiting from a synthetic pronunciation. The CRISCO lab of the University of Caen, France, in collaboration with Musica International and with the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), has adapted its experimental voice synthesis software KALI to pronounce the texts of songs in a hyperarticulated way, to optimize teaching of the pronunciation by singers not speaking the language.
This feature is on-line in beta-test. Even if it is not useful to singers who are native to the language, do not hesitate to check it and to give feedbacks in order to allow us to correct the remaining inevitable errors. Access by searching for choral pieces in the database on http://www.musicanet.org; the presence of this feature is indicated by a special iconfollowing the short description of a song in the list of results.

2) News from our members:

- from now on Breitkopf & Härtel offers sample scores for more than 200 important choral works. - They can be downloaded as pdf-files free of charge on the publisher’s website www.breitkopf.com. More at http://www.musicanet.org/pdf/Freedownload.Choralmusic.pdf .

- February 27-28, 2010: Week-end of discovery of choral repertoire and of use of tools of nowadays to optimize the elaboration of a concert program. Consultation of the Library of choral scores of Musica. A Musica DVD-ROM will be offered at the end of the weekend. Co-production Mission Voix Alsace - Musica International. Clinician: Jean Sturm, director of Musica International. Location: Strasbourg. More at http://www.musicanet.org/fr/manifestations.php

3) Musica Workshops:

We have planned two Musica workshops (sessions) in the coming months ; one in France and another one in Italy. If you are interested to attend one of them, or simply want to let us know your interest to attend such a session in the future, please contact us (office@musicanet.org). More about Musica sessions at http://www.musicanet.org/en/workshops.php

4) New type of workshop:

During the choral festival "XXe Choralies" in Vaison-la-Romaine (France), August 2-10, 2010, Musica International will propose a special session called "Come, Input and Go". It will be located at the Conductors' Forum and will aim at offering the possibility to any composer, conductor and publisher to input data into the Musica database while attending the festival, under the supervision of the staff of Musica International.
Contact: office(at)musicanet.org

5) Professional subscription for music libraries:

If you have a connexion with music libraries, propose them to take a professional subscription to Musica and then take advantage of their full privileged access to musicanet.org (no limitations, access to the auditorium,..). The access from the library to musicanet.org is then possible without login, nor password, if they are connected with a fixed IP. Possibility to subscribe for a range of fixed IPs or even global subscription such as for a whole institution such as a university.
More at http://www.musicanet.org/en/subscription.php

6) The next General Assembly of Musica International association will be held on March 20, 2010, in the headquarters of our member CARUS, in Stuttgart (Leinfelden Echterdingen). Contact: office(at)musicanet.org

7) Facebook :

Show your support to Musica by becoming a fan of its page on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Musica-International/117584693914

Best regards,

The Musica International team