RenCon 2025: Revival of the Expressive Performance Rendering Competition

TL;DR

RenCon 2025 showcased diverse approaches to expressive piano rendering, highlighting advances and remaining challenges in achieving human-like musical expression through a competitive evaluation.

Contribution

This paper documents the revival and evaluation of the RenCon 2025 competition, providing insights into current expressive rendering techniques and future research directions.

Findings

Significant advances in expressive rendering capabilities.

Diverse approaches from international research groups.

Remaining challenges in achieving human-level expression.

Abstract

This paper presents a comprehensive documentation of RenCon 2025, the revival of the expressive performance rendering competition which took place at ISMIR 2025 in Daejeon, Korea. The competition attracted 9 entries from international research groups, representing diverse approaches to expressive piano performance rendering. The two-phase assessment structure comprised a preliminary online evaluation and live real-time rendering at the conference. We analyze the competition format, participant demographics, system performance, and lessons learned for future iterations. The results demonstrate significant advances in expressive rendering capabilities while highlighting remaining challenges in achieving human-level musical expression.