
Music students chosen from the region created handmade musical instruments, built and performed with jelly theremins and developed new musical technologies using the Arduino / Genuino platform.
Our new team member, Alexander Allen, was himself one of the #MTFSparks teens just a couple of years back. At the time, he impressed us all with a quadcopter he’d built and flew in the London Symphony Orchestra Hall at the Barbican St Lukes during our #MTFLondon event. This time around, he came along as part of the team to document the event - including some fantastic drone footage with breathtaking views of Genoa.
Genoa is a city that looks to the future without forgetting thousands of years of its own history. A city where the young make music in Paganini’s name; where the historical Doge’s Palace – the palace of the people’s power in Genoa’s medieval republic - hosts pop art exhibitions; and the Old Port is full of young people building their future. It’s a place where historic shops are revived thanks to new industries and students from all over the world come to do research.
It’s no accident that we have called it #Genovamorethanthis.
Music Tech Fest’s #MTFSparks event put new tools, technologies and techniques into the hands of young Genovese music students with some inspiring results.

“Working with the MTF Team for the first time in Italy has been an exciting experience, even for those of us who have dealt with European partnership projects for young people for many years.
“The Italian students took to the #MTFLabs experience with great enthusiasm and became completely immersed in the shared activity. In their subsequent comments on social media, students from the music high schools of the Region called it “fantastic” and “unforgettable”, and expressed wishes to continue the experience in a future instalment.
“It was immediately clear that MTF is the ideal European model to explain to young people what it means to create connections between different disciplines, especially music, digital innovation, creativity and technology.

Genoa offers a wonderful basis for building an innovation ecosystem around Music and Technology. It’s a place where the history of art and music come together with the future of technologies and creative industries. During our time in Genoa, the MTF team visited the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Casa Paganini, the Camera di Commercio di Genova, the Historic Shops and the Palazzo Ducale.
Huge thanks to Ligurian Regional Councillor of Communication, Training and Politics for Youth and Culture, Ilaria Cavo - the mastermind behind Orientamenti.
Here are some of the heroes who have helped us build this ecosystem over the past 4 years:
Jason Singh, Adam John Williams, Matt Black-Coldcut, Graham Massey, Nitin Sawhney, Reeps One, Martyn Ware, Ezra, Shlomo, Crewdson, LJ Rich, Jamie Cullum, Scanner, Tim Exile, Mørk, Ross Flight, Leafcutter John
Ninja Tune, Warp, Soundcloud, RJDJ, The Echo Nest, Spotify, Last.fm, Shazam, Mixcloud, MusicBrainz, Musimap, B3 Media, Drake Music
Reactable, Alphasphere, Ableton, Native, ROLI, Izotope, FXpansion, Teenage Engineering, Toontrack, Serato, Soundation, Bare Conductive, Jays, Dizzy Jam, Grain Audio, Ultrasonic
element14, RS Components, Makey Makey, London Music Hackspace, Music Tech Meetup, Monthly Music Hackathon, Innovation Warehouse
The BBC, Abbey Road, Warner Music, EMI, RCA Records, London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican, WIRED, MTV, Stephen Fry/Penguin, Realta Films, Rebel Uncut , Riff Raff Films
Sonos, Volvo, Philips, Microsoft Research, Cisco, Swedbank, Red Bull
EU Commission, DMIC, British Council, Slovenian Ministry of Culture, Cankarjev Dom, MSUM, Umeå Kommun, Region Västerbotten, Uminova, Ume.net, Guitars Museum, NZ Music Commission, Sounds Aotearoa, Sound and Music, Redstar Union, Factory Berlin
MTG, IRCAM, C4DM, Fraunhofer, BCU, MIT Media Lab, Harvard Music Minds, Berklee College of Music, McGill, Goldsmiths, Umeå University, Royal College of Art
…and an ever growing list of music tech startups with great ideas on how to reinvent this space.
The Music Tech Fest evolved from the ROADMAP FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC TECH.
The Music Tech Fest soundtrack is growing courtesy of those great guys at Soundcloud.
Every network should have a soundtrack.