Christos Michalakos

Biography

Christos Michalakos is a composer, performer and software developer. His research explores the relationships between sound, music, games and performance. He also designs and builds interactive sound and music systems for games and applications. Christos has presented at a wide range of conferences and festivals including the International Conference on Live Interfaces (Brighton 2016), DiGRA/FDG (Dundee 2016), London Jazz Festival (London 2015), Game Developers Conference (San Francisco 2015), ACM Creativity and Cognition (Glasgow 2015), New Interfaces for Musical Expression (Oslo 2011 / London 2014 / Brisbane 2016), International Computer Music Conference (Ljubljana 2012 / Shanghai 2017), International Symposium on Electronic Art (Albuquerque 2012) and Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music (Belfast 2011 / 12 / 16).

He often improvises with his augmented drum-kit, a custom hybrid instrument which extends the traditional acoustic drum-kit through the use of sensors and bespoke software. Over the years he has shared the stage with a plethora of artists ranging from improvising saxophonist Evan Parker, to performance artist Stelarc, as well as various long-term collaboration projects. 

Before joining Abertay University in Dundee where he leads the BA (Hons) programme in Sound and Music for Games at the School of Design and Informatics, he has worked in the games industry as lead audio programmer and interface designer.

Christos holds a BSc in Mathematics (University of Crete 2006), an MSc in Acoustics and Music Technology (University of Edinburgh 2008) and a PhD in Computer Music (University of Edinburgh 2013), examined by renowned composer and multi-instrumentalist Fred Frith.