The Heartbeat of Quantum Music

| on 16 September 2024

World Premier at Ars Electronica 2024: Bruqner - The Sound of Entanglement.

On September 4th, 2024, the New Cathedral in Linz, Austria, hosted a one-of-a-kind event—the world premiere of “Bruqner—The Sound of Entanglement.” This concert, a thrilling collaboration between leading scientists and artists, promises to push the boundaries of what is possible about both music and quantum mechanics.

The Fusion of Quantum Mechanics and Music

This year marks the 200th birthday of Anton Bruckner, a legendary Austrian composer. Inspired by Bruckner’s legacy and the Nobel Prize-winning work of Anton Zeilinger on the Bell’s experiment, the musician and composer Clemens Wenger, the visual artist Enar de Dios Rodríguez, as well as the experimental physicists and theoretical computer scientists Martin Ringbauer (University of Innsbruck), Johannes Kofler, Richard Küng, Alexander Ploier (University of Linz), Benjamin Orthner and Philipp Haslinger (Vienna University of Technology) sought to merge Austria’s rich musical heritage with cutting-edge quantum science. The result is “Bruqner—The Sound of Entanglement,” a concert that bridges the classical with the quantum. Central to this unprecedented event was the Swabian Instruments Time Tagger, which played a crucial role in transforming quantum phenomena into a live musical experience.

The performance explored the fascinating concept that fuses unrivaled organ music with quantum entanglement, a phenomenon in which two quantum systems are connected so that they cannot be described independently of each other. This phenomenon works over long distances and serves as the foundation for modern quantum technologies.

Our Time Tagger Ultra lay at the heart of the performance by facilitating real-time simultaneous correlation of signals coming from photon measurements over multiple channels. Our Time Tagger allowed musicians to create music inspired by the famous “Perger Präludium” and evolved due to non-classical correlations, producing sounds that are as innovative as they are mesmerizing. These sounds controlled a light show, adding a visual dimension and creating a multi-sensory experience.

The Swabian Instruments Time Tagger is already a trusted tool in the scientific community, and its application in the realm of music marks a significant leap forward in both fields.

Photos: Tom Mesic, vog.photo, and weitblickfilm.

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