Marcella Mandanici is a music composer, researcher and full professor of Music Education at the Music Conservatory of Brescia (Italy). She has authored many vocal and theatrical works and between 1986 and 1993 has served as the artistic director of "Nuovi Spazi Sonori," an Italian association for promoting and advancing contemporary music. Mandanici's academic background includes a Master of Science (MSc) degree in Music Technology from the Conservatory of Como, which she obtained in 2012. Later, in 2016, she earned a Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the University of Padova. Her diverse educational background reflects her interdisciplinary approach to research and teaching. As a researcher, Mandanici focuses on applications for music education and rehabilitation. Her work has explored innovative ways of integrating technology into music education and using music as a means of rehabilitation. Notably, she received a best paper award at the 3rd EAI International Conference on SmartObjects and Technologies for Social Good in 2017 for her study on the rehabilitation of blind children. In 2018, Mandanici led a project called "The Discovery of Interactive Spaces," which received support from the National Operation Program (PON) as part of the "Fondo Sociale Europeo (FSE)" framework. This project likely involved exploring interactive and immersive environments in the context of music. She is PC member of CIM (from 2016), SMC 2019 and 2020, CSME and UBIMUS from 2020. Since 2019, Mandanici has taken on the role of director for the MSc degree in Technologies for Music Education. This position allows her to shape and guide the curriculum for students interested in utilizing technology in music education. Furthermore, Mandanici actively organizes various music technology workshops and conferences for music teachers. Notable events include the Music Technology Day, which has seen four editions since 2019, and the Teaching Music at Distance conference in 2020. These eventshighlight her commitment to sharing knowledge and fostering professional development within the music education community. Throughout her career, Mandanici has authored over 30 scientific works in the areas of sound and music computing, multimedia, and music education. Simone Spagnol received the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from the University of Padova in 2012. He then was a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Iceland, Delft University of Technology, and Aalborg University, where he was awarded a Marie Sk¿odowska-Curie fellowship within the Horizon 2020 project IT'S A DIVE: Individual Three-dimensional Spatial Auditory Displays for Immersive Virtual Environments. He is currently Assistant Professor at Iuav University of Venice. His scientific activity is mainly devoted to information processing and representation, with a particular focus on auditory and multimedia information. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications in international journals and conference proceedings. He has chaired the Scientific Committee of the 2020 and 2021 editions of the Sound and Music Computing (SMC) Conference, and since 2020 he is senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Luca A. Ludovico is an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Milan, Italy. He received a Master's Degree in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Milan. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Laboratory of Music Informatics of the University of Milan, and his research interests deal with sound and music computing. In particular, his scientific activities focus on the multi-layer representation of music information, computational musicology, computer-supported music education, and intangible cultural heritage. As a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Generated Music, he has been one of the main contributors to the standardization of the IEEE 1599 format. He is currently the vice-chair of the IEEE Working Group for XML Musical Application (WG 1599). Moreover, he is a member of the CINI Lab for Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems, MIDI Association, and W3C Music Notation Community Group. Adriano Baratè has designed a number of traditional and multimedia databases. He has developed analysis tools to retrieve information from large databases of music pieces, allowing a number of musicological studies. He has developed new analysis tools to check partial matching of metadata. He studied the use of Petri Nets to represent structural musical information. He has developed new software tools to design Musical Petri Nets, adding the possibility of interacting in real time with music structures. He has analyzed a great number of music pieces to create a database of models. He contributed to the development of the IEEE 1599 standard, developing a number of frameworks to work with this XML-based encoding. He has developed new analysis tools to synchronize audio signals with the corresponding IEEE 1599 documents. He has designed and developed new interfaces for music fruition, studying how the genre of music pieces can influence human-computer interaction. These interfaces were used to promote cultural heritage in various projects. He has designed and developed new solutions for computer-aided music education, thanks to the IEEE 1599 standard and to new visual interfaces. Federico Avanzini is currently Full Professor at the University of Milano. He received my Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Padova in 2002, and worked there until 2017, as a postdoctoral researcher, Assistant Professor, and Associate Professor. His main research interests are in Sound and Music Computing (SMC), and mainly concern algorithms for sound synthesis and processing, non-speech sound in human-computer interfaces, multimodal interaction. He has been key researcher and principal investigator in several national and international research projects, have authored about 200 publications on peer-reviewed international journals and conferences, have chaired and served in several program and editorial committees. He has been Associate Editor for the international journal Acta Acustica (2014-201), and he is a member of the Editorial Board of Milano University Press. He is currently Conference Coordinator in the International SMC Board, and President of the Italian Music Informatics Association.
