Designing Sound Futures (DSF) brings together a transdisciplinary York University research team (faculty and RAs), community-based partners (Community Music Schools of Toronto at Regent Park and Jane & Finch; Kwartzlab Makerspace, Waterloo), industry partners (System80, Hale, MIDI.org), and academic partners, including Re/Lab (Jason Nolan, director, TMU) and the Canadian Accessible Music Instruments Network (adam patrick bell, PI, Western). Meet our research team.

DSF consists of project ‘working groups’ composed of York faculty, RAs, and community/industry/academic partners. Working groups are modular, allowing for the on-boarding of new/different DSF team members according to research interests, skill sets, and project phase/development.

Leveraging transdisciplinary partner relationships to challenge exclusionary boundaries in music education, the arts, and culture, our project aims include:

• Transforming educational, community, and industry relationships while creating new forms of design, music and participation.

• Creating new forms of music and new pedagogies informed by EDI principles — through transdisciplinary inquiry and ‘disability-led design’ (bell et al, 2019) of adapted instruments and new tools/interfaces.

• Supporting disability-led design of interface properties, controllers, and adapted/new instrument design.

• Developing toolkits with cutting-edge materials that can be ‘directly channeled into community-based social innovation’ (Baljko, 2022).

External partners and consultants include Blurring the Boundaries Arts and Arts Ably, as well as Community Music Schools of Toronto (director Richard Marsalla is a core member of the DSF team responsible for community-led research and social innovation). Material/interface designers and acoustical artists include Kenneth Emig and Stefan Powell.