Students at New York University who study the music industry and do research at the frontiers of audio have a new benefactor: Sony.
A $7.5 million donation from the Japanese electronics and media giant, made through its personal entertainment business unit, will help establish the Sony Audio Institute, a multifaceted partnership at N.Y.U.’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. It is set to open this spring.
N.Y.U. and Sony, which jointly announced their agreement on Tuesday, say that the institute is not a physical space. Rather, it’s an interdisciplinary approach to studying and researching the latest advances in consumer and pro-level audio tech — replete with Sony tools to facilitate. As part of the partnership, a studio space will be revamped with professional equipment from Sony and the institute will offer an array of internships, scholarships and programming, even letting students collaborate with Sony’s engineers and researchers.
The institute will not, however, grant degrees. It will be part of Steinhardt’s degree programs in music business and music technology.
“To have access to the researchers who are inventing the future of audio, as well as the businesspeople who are managing the introduction of those products, creates a great opportunity and a competitive advantage for our students,” Larry S. Miller, the director of Steinhardt’s music industry program, said in an interview.
Miller, a former music executive, will step down from his leadership of the school’s music industry program in the fall to become director of the Sony Audio Institute, which has been established for an initial 10-year run. (It is unrelated to the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, a degree program under N.Y.U.’s Tisch School for the Arts.)
The partnership between a major corporation and a university, with promises of involvement from Sony employees, is unusual. But both organizations describe it as offering rare opportunities for students in a rapidly evolving tech environment. It was facilitated by Marcie Allen, a music industry consultant who has worked with Sony and is an adjunct faculty member at Steinhardt.
For Sony, the institute is partly a branding opportunity, putting the company’s gear and expertise into the hands of the next generation of audio specialists. N.Y.U.’s studio in Downtown Brooklyn, for example — to be renamed the Sony Audio Institute Studio — will be fitted with the company’s immersive-audio equipment. Even in their dorm rooms, students will be able to use the company’s 360 Virtual Mixing Environment, a technology that emulates the audio effects of a physical studio space.
“We’re looking at: How are we supporting emerging music creators who are students? How are we looking at future music technology, five to 10 years from now?” said Jordy Freed, the head of brand, business development and strategy at Sony’s personal entertainment business.
N.Y.U. will work with the tech and media conglomerate to incorporate “the latest Sony audio solutions” into the broader Steinhardt curriculum (alongside products by other companies, they say). And work done at Steinhardt’s Music and Audio Research Laboratory, an existing facility at Steinhardt, could involve engineers from Sony’s Tokyo headquarters.
But N.Y.U. and Sony insist the university’s independence is secure, and that any joint research would be subject to the terms of N.Y.U.’s existing intellectual property policy.
“N.Y.U. is in charge of curriculums, programs and education, period,” Miller said.
The institute, Miller said, aims to train students for a future in the music and audio world with “skills to literally do jobs that don’t exist yet.”
“Those might be pretty lofty goals,” he added, “but I think we’re going to be able to make a dent in all of those areas.”
