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Open Outcry (the composition, choreography and conducting of a 'reality' opera)

Open Outcry is a ‘reality’ opera in which singers trade real money using genetic algorithm-based melodies whose harmonic interaction represents the affective state of the stock market. It premiered at Mansion House in the City of London in November 2012. Created in collaboration with Greg B. Davies, Head of Behavioural and Quantitative Finance at Barclays Wealth, Kirke wrote the cello score and singing phrases, choreographed the trading signs and conducted the performance. Through this project, he researched how a score might be flexible enough to allow for the expression of a performer’s emotions, while still maintaining a productive performance framework. He used a technique found in a number of generative music systems, in which consonant melodies express positive emotion and dissonant melodies express negative emotions. This background research is discussed in a book chapter about the potentials of Pulsed Melodic Processing, including within stock market contexts (Kirke & Miranda, 2013). In Open Outcry, the singers have freedom within loose musical constraints; the phrases they can sing have carefully optimized ensemble harmonic properties. The performance is framed by a statistical stock market model, partially controlled by the conductor. Singers hold and trade portfolios of artificial stocks and are paid post-performance based on their final values. Hence, dramatic action and aesthetic content are driven by singers attempting to make, or not lose, money. The six human-sung melodies are optimized by genetic algorithms so that if the market is booming, the singers sound consonant; if in bust, they sound dissonant; and the ‘neutral’ buy and sell phrases of the same stock are consonant together. This research has been disseminated through a video distributed by Barclays, at an international computer music conference (Finland) and through invited talks at an international Finance Conference (Monaco), and the Royal Institution of Great Britain (all 2013).