Ajay Kapur is a co-founder, President, CEO, and Member of the Board at Kadenze, Inc. Ajay is the Associate Dean at California Institute of the Arts.
Ajay received his interdisciplinary PhD in 2007 from University of Victoria in New Zealand where he combined computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, music and psychology with a focus on intelligent music systems and media technology. Ajay got his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2002. Some of Ajay’s published books titles include, Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists, and Digitizing North Indian Music.
Perry Cook is a co-founder of Kadenze, Inc., is a member of the board and holds the position of Executive Vice President for Algorithms & Intellectual Property Strategy. Perry is also sits on Smule’s advisory board, Smule is a developer of interactive sonic applications for mobile devices. Perry is an American computer music researcher and professor emeritus of computer science and music at Princeton University. At Princeton, Perry founded and headed of the Princeton Sound Lab which conducted research in a variety of areas in computer music, including programming languages for audio and multimedia. Perry has worked in the areas of physical modeling, singing voice synthesis, principles of computer music controller design, audio analysis and real-time computer music programming languages and systems, and has written a number of books on these subjects. Perry is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Perry got his masters and doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Music from University of Missouri in Kansas City.
Jordan Hochenbaum is a co-founder at Kadenze, Inc. and holds the position of Chief Creative Officer and Vice President of Engineering. Jordan teaches creative coding, engineering, computational & generative graphics, and music production at the Music Technology and Digital Media programs at CalArts. His work involves leveraging machine learning in the arts, designing novel interfaces for musical performance, and playing and composing in a wide range of musical genres. Prior to founding Kadenze Jordan worked as a research scientist at Twitter, developed a large-scale multi-touch technology for Nokia Research Labs, co-authored a popular book on the Arduino microcontroller, and received the Leonardo Fellowship award.
Jordan received his PhD from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand in 2013 where his research applied multimodal analysis and machine learning to the domain of musical performance.
Owen Vallis is a co-founder and the Vice President of Digital Marketing and Data Analytics at Kadenze, Inc. Owen is skilled in Python, Machine Learning, AWS Infrastructure, Analytics, and Creative Engineering Solutions. Owen was the Professor of Music Technology at California Institute of Arts
After getting his undergraduate degree in Music Technology at California Institute of the Arts, Owen got his Ph. D in Sonic Arts at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. His doctorate focus was in Machine Learning for Interactive Systems, Networked Ensembles, and Interface Development.
Harmony Jiroudek is active in the fields of vocal performance, arts education technology, and instructional design. Currently the Director of Academic Relations at Kadenze, Inc., Jiroudek has over a decade's worth of experience working in higher education, and has managed dozens of relationships with academic institutions worldwide. As a producer & instructional designer for online learning, she consults with faculty using Kadenze technology to design, develop, and scale production of art-focused MOOCs.
Jiroudek, an accomplished mezzo-soprano, has participated in several American and world premiere performances, including Michael Gordon’s What to Wear, George Aperghis’ Sextuor: L’Origine des espèces, and David Rosenboom’s Attunement. Other noteworthy performances include: Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Mavra, Steve Reich’s Music for 18, Bruno Maderna’s Satyricon, J.S. Bach’s Cantata 170 with guest violinist, Elizabeth Blumenstock. Jiroudek received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in vocal performance from California Institute of the Arts, where she also served as voice faculty from 2012–2014.
Currently the Customer Relations Manager at Kadenze, Inc., Joe Thel has worked to help learners get the most out of their programs. Through both research and consultation, he works with students and instructors to streamline their online education experience, and improve learning outcomes.
Joe is also a musician who specializes in experimental performance. A CalArts graduate, his work focuses on isolating and exploring the fundamental blocks of musical experiences. He's recently performed with wild Up!, People Inside Electronics, and the American Youth Symphony. He is also the Composer Chair of the Contemporary Choral Collective of Los Angeles (C3LA), and a sometimes-conductor for Concerto NoHo.
Currently the Director of Virtual Learning Business Development at Kadenze, Inc., Sarah works closely with educational institutions and companies to build online learning strategies and reach new audiences.
Sarah is also a performer-composer, active in the fields of electroacoustic trumpet performance, intermedia arts, music technology, and improvisation. She has performed throughout the world with artists including Charlie Haden, Wadada Leo Smith, and Vinny Golia, and with ensembles such as the Liberation Music Orchestra, KREation Ensemble, Orchestre de la Francophonie, and the Montreal Symphony Pops Orchestra.
Alejandro Hernandez is a Graphic Designer with a diverse background in various mediums of art. Animation, film, and photography have a firm hold on Alejandro’s heart. Smitten with all three mediums of art, Alejandro has naturally dedicated his life to enhancing his artistic talents within these mediums independently while also seeking professional training to strengthen his processes and further inform his design work.
He spent four glorious years at our great Nation’s very first Institute of Art bequeathed to California by none other than Walt Disney and his brother Roy. California Institute of the Arts, located in the heart of Valencia, is where Alejandro would further shape his talents in the Graphic Design program. His enthusiasm and dedication to the Design Thinking Process has led him to extend his education to encompass psychology and User Experience (UX). The former and the latter allow for a more extensive, creative and deeper engagement with user experience in the various projects that he becomes involved with.
In his free time, Alejandro enjoys exploring the city streets of Los Angeles on his bicycle, swimming, possibly body surfing or if it is winter, snowboarding. On Sunday morning’s one can usually find Alejandro practicing mindfulness while tending to his garden and developing his culinary skills one meal at a time.
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Kevin is an experienced software engineer and coach with over a decade of experience. Early in his career he worked for tech giants Microsoft and IBM along with a brief stint writing aviation test software for Garmin International. Since then he has freelanced for a few different startups and ad agencies, occasionally taking on a full time employment before moving on to the next exciting project. His focus for the last 8 years has primarily been web development and he is fascinated by the potential of the World Wide Web to connect people in ways that were unimagined even a decade ago.
The only member of his family not to become a teacher, Kevin manifests his passion for education through technology and innovation. He is excited to be creating technological solutions to aid in the democratization of education and make it more readily available and affordable for all.
Kevin began building the software that powers Kannu and now leads a talented team of technologists to deliver quality features in a timely and iterative fashion. He and his team keep up with state of the art practices and focus heavily on continuous improvement to ensure they are delivering the best products they possibly can.
On the weekends you can usually find him backpacking in the mountains, gardening, or working on a music or woodworking project.
Urveeka Patel is the Director of QA at Kadenze Inc. In her role, Urveeka has set up the QA process to ensure that product releases are of the highest quality possible. She works closely with the engineering and customer relations teams to continuously improve the quality of the product, and helps to plan and prioritize product and feature releases.
Urveeka enjoys spending time outdoors, hiking and camping, and traveling to different parts of the world, experiencing different cultures.
Jesal made his foray into technology at an early age, building PCs from scratch and writing code in languages long retired into the history books. Subsequently, he followed his passion and graduated with a degree in Computer Science.
Throughout the years since then, he has had the opportunity to lead engineering on dozens of projects of all sizes and complexity for major brands, start-ups and small businesses using a range of programming languages and frameworks.
Now as the Director of Web Engineering, his role spans anywhere from planning, building & maintaining features with the engineering team to assisting with tech support and on-boarding. In addition, he strives to be a constant supplier of new technical solutions for the platform by keeping up with the pace of innovation and experimenting with various technologies.
In his spare time, you can find him tinkering on his side-projects, writing on his blog or traveling & hiking to discover the perfect landscapes to hone his photography skills.
With a background in fine arts, Sean has brought that creativity and attention to detail into interactive development for the last two decades. As Director of Front-End Development, he works closely with designer and developers to lead his team to creating a rich and intuitive user experience.
