The Quantum Music and Creativity Lab (QMuse) is an interdisciplinary Living Lab dedicated to exploring the context where quantum technologies, music, and creativity and innovation intersect. The lab was founded in March 2025 at Norwich, UK, associated with the Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia (UEA) – a top UK research university. Our mission is to bring together diverse potential stakeholders – including musicians, academics, music industry professionals, regulators, and audiences – to develop a collaborative innovation ecosystem in order to to study quantum tech-enabled musical creativity from a socio-musico-technological perspective.
A socio-musico-technological perspective defines musical creativity as a relational and emergent phenomenon, constituted through assemblages of social actors, technologies, musical elements, and spacial-temporal flows, in which creative agency is distributed across people, objects, and its contextual conditions such as space and time. The context thus is the ‘king’ to enable musical innovation and creativity.
Therefore, at the heart of the QMuse lab’s approach is the belief that innovation in quantum music should not be limited to technological advancements alone. Instead, musical creativity is enabled and enacted as music is in the making (eg. composing, performing, distributing, and appreciating). QMuse adopts a Living Lab Methodology – we understand the adoption of quantum tech in music creative work through collective thought-provoking, experience sharing, knowledge exchange, and collaborative innovation. Through workshops, lectures, panel discussions, conferences, and real life experiments, we provide a space for open dialogue and co-creation to collectively understand the interactions among quantum music, instruments and infrastructure, competence and knowledge, practices, and environmental conditions in the context. Our ultimate ambition is to lay the foundation for a large-scale quantum music movement, shaping the future of artistic expression, industry innovation, and human engagement with music in the quantum era.
The QMuse is more than a research initiative—it is a collaborative movement toward a future where quantum technologies and human creativity coalesce in unprecedented ways.