Reply AI Music Contest 2026 Finalists Set to Perform at Kappa FuturFestival in Turin

On July 3 and 4, the Nova Stage in Turin’s Parco Dora will host the final showdown of the Reply AI Music Contest. Five groundbreaking acts will take the spotlight, each pushing the boundaries of live performance with artificial intelligence. The contest’s international jury of eight industry leaders will crown the winner on Saturday evening, adding a decisive moment to the festival’s already electric lineup.

The competition, a joint venture between Italian IT consultancy Reply and Kappa FuturFestival, explores the fusion of AI and human creativity. This year’s theme, Imaginatio Nova, invites participants to demonstrate how technology can rekindle artistic imagination and expand the vocabulary of live shows.

Reply received more than 1,400 entries from 45 countries, and over 300 live‑performance videos were submitted—an increase of more than 55 % over the 2025 edition. From this pool, five projects were selected as finalists:

- Violeta Valcheva (Spain) – a Barcelona‑based multimedia artist who weaves sound composition, AI‑generated imagery, and interactive visual environments into a unified narrative. - POLARIS (Spain) – a collective that builds an audiovisual live show around collaboration between musicians, visual artists, and performers, using AI as a shared creative engine. - Ciauru (Italy) – the alias of DJ‑producer Simone Privitera, who integrates AI tools into a contemporary electronic set that fuses music, visuals, and cultural references. - Yichu Li (United States) – a New York‑based artist whose research spans digital art, computational design, and musical experimentation, offering fresh forms of audiovisual expression. - PARAFRAME & Avis Vox (Germany) – an international duo from Frankfurt that merges melodic techno, vocal performance, and visual design, probing the interaction between artist and machine.

The finalists will perform on the Nova Stage, a platform powered by Reply that will remain active until the festival’s conclusion. After the shows, the jury will deliberate and announce the contest’s champion.

The jury comprises: - Agoria (Sébastien Devaud, French electronic musician) - Max Cooper (British producer and researcher) - Fleur Shore (British composer and sound designer) - Tini Gessler (German producer and composer) - Ali Demirel (Turkish composer and producer) - Albi Scotti (Italian composer and producer) - Oliver Bohl (German composer and producer) - Sarah Grimaldi (Italian composer and producer)

Agoria reflected on AI’s role in performance: "I see AI as an Alternative Intelligence. Its purpose is not to imitate what musicians already know how to do, but to make possible what would be impossible without it. The goal is to improvise together with AI and to experience, in creating with it, the same pleasure one feels when using any other traditional instrument or expressive medium."

Reply’s Chief Technology Officer, Filippo Rizzante, praised the contest’s diversity: "What impressed me most about the submissions received for this second edition of the AI Music Contest was the diversity of creative approaches. The finalists do not use artificial intelligence simply as a technical tool, but as a new expressive medium to explore different artistic territories. From immersive audiovisual live performances to experimentation across sound, image and interaction, a generation of artists is emerging that is helping to redefine the very concept of performance. It is exciting to see how AI can amplify human imagination, opening up creative possibilities that did not exist just a few years ago."

The contest is part of Reply Challenges, a series of technological and creative competitions that nurture learning models for new generations. The Reply Challenges community now includes more than 250,000 participants worldwide.

Reply, listed on the STAR segment of the Italian Stock Exchange, specialises in digital media, cloud computing and AI solutions for telecom, media, industry, banking, insurance and public sectors.

Kappa FuturFestival, held in the industrial Parco Dora, remains one of Europe’s premier festivals dedicated to electronic music and cultural innovation. The 2026 edition runs from July 3 to 5, featuring a mix of DJ sets, live performances and experimental shows across multiple stages.

By showcasing how AI can be woven into live performance, the AI Music Contest underscores the growing trend of AI‑enhanced audiovisual experiences in the music and entertainment industries. The winner will be announced on the Nova Stage on Saturday 4 July, bringing the second edition of the contest to a triumphant close.