Songs Across Centuries: Cultural Continuity in Music in the Age of AI

Mauro Durante
Violinist, Percussionist, Composer 

In Conversation with Drs. Stefano Santo Sabato and Bridget Algee

Traditional music survives not by remaining unchanged, but by evolving. Folk repertoires endure because each generation reinterprets them—carrying forward cultural memory while reshaping form and meaning for the present.

In this conversation, musician and composer Mauro Durante reflects on his creative process of rearranging centuries-old Mediterranean folk traditions into contemporary musical language. His practice becomes a lens for a broader question: how do humans preserve continuity across time while embracing transformation? 

Joining the dialogue, Stefano Santo Sabato and Bridget Algee-Hewitt explore parallel challenges in AI and the humanities: how knowledge is transmitted, how context is retained, and what is gained—or lost—when systems are built without cultural depth.

Bringing together music, technology, and humanistic inquiry, the event argues for a multidisciplinary, top-down approach to AI design—one that begins with meaning, memory, and the long arc of human experience. 

Light Lunch | 11:30 a.m.
Seminar | 12:00 p.m.
Folk Music "Taranta" Workshop | 1:00 p.m.

Register to attend in person or online >> 

About the Series

(Delta)Data is a new CESTA Seminar series that invites academics and industry leaders to explore through a shared lens the evolving landscape of data and to advance the academic-private partnerships critical to the future of innovation.