RenCon 2025: Revival of Expressive Performance Rendering Competition

Huan Zhang, Taegyun Kwon, Anders Freiburg, Junyan Jiang, Hayeon Bang , Hyeyoon Cho , Gus Xia, Akira Maezawa, Simon Dixon, and Dasaem Jeong

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

We report on RenCon 2025, the revival of the expressive performance rendering competition which took place after a 12-year hiatus at ISMIR 2025 in Daejeon, Korea. The competition attracted 9 entries from international research groups, representing diverse approaches to expressive piano performance rendering. The two-phase assessment structure comprised a preliminary online evaluation and live real-time rendering at the conference. We analyze the competition format, participant demographics, system performance, and lessons learned for future iterations. The results demonstrate significant advances in expressive rendering capabilities while highlighting remaining challenges in achieving human-level musical expression.

Citation

Huan Zhang, Taegyun Kwon, Anders Freiburg, Junyan Jiang, Hayeon Bang , Hyeyoon Cho , Gus Xia, Akira Maezawa, Simon Dixon, and Dasaem Jeong. 2026. RenCon 2025: Revival of Expressive Performance Rendering Competition. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784242 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_79,
 abstract = {We report on RenCon 2025, the revival of the expressive performance rendering competition which took place after a 12-year hiatus at ISMIR 2025 in Daejeon, Korea. The competition attracted 9 entries from international research groups, representing diverse approaches to expressive piano performance rendering. The two-phase assessment structure comprised a preliminary online evaluation and live real-time rendering at the conference. We analyze the competition format, participant demographics, system performance, and lessons learned for future iterations. The results demonstrate significant advances in expressive rendering capabilities while highlighting remaining challenges in achieving human-level musical expression.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {79},
 author = {Huan Zhang and Taegyun Kwon and Anders Freiburg and Junyan Jiang and Hayeon Bang  and Hyeyoon Cho  and Gus Xia and Akira Maezawa and Simon Dixon and Dasaem Jeong},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784242},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {7},
 pages = {670--676},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/eBuXK8goZxk},
 title = {RenCon 2025: Revival of Expressive Performance Rendering Competition},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_79.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}