Jingwei Zhao

Computer Music Researcher · PhD, National University of Singapore

Hullo! I work at the intersection of computer music and machine learning, with a focus on music representation learning, generative modelling, and applications to various MIR tasks.

I recently completed my PhD at the NUS Sound & Music Computing Lab, advised by Prof. Ye Wang, and I am currently a research engineer intern at Songscription. Before that, I earned my B.E. with honours from Shanghai Jiao Tong University as part of the Zhiyuan Honours Program. I interned at the Music X Lab, NYU Shanghai, under the mentorship of Prof. Gus Xia, with whom I am honoured to continue collaborating.

I'm an accordionist and a baritone singer. I proudly served in the SJTU Student Choir in my college years. I enjoy J-Pop, hiking, and cycling. My favourite artist is Teresa Teng.

Portrait of Jingwei Zhao

News

  1. Jul 2026
    Our paper Learning Music Style for Piano Arrangement Through Cross-Modal Bootstrapping is accepted at ISMIR 2026.
  2. Apr 2026
    Joined Songscription as a research engineer intern, working towards a future where anyone can learn any song on any instrument, at their own level.
  3. Mar 2026
    Defended my doctoral thesis, Enhancing Music Creativity through Generative AI: Towards Stylistic, Structured, and Collaborative Music Arrangement. I am grateful for all the support along the way.
  4. Nov 2025
    Visited Prof. Kazuyoshi Yoshii and the MIR research team at Kyoto University.
  5. Sep 2025
    Presented my MIREX submission Beat-U: Multi-Task Music Understanding with Hierarchical Timescales at ISMIR 2025.
  6. Jul 2025
    Started an internship at Yamaha Corporation, working on multi-task music understanding.
  7. Jun 2025
    Visited Prof. Yi-Hsuan Yang and the Music and AI Lab at National Taiwan University.
  8. Jan 2025
    Visited MBZUAI, Abu Dhabi, for research collaboration with Prof. Gus Xia.
  9. Dec 2024
    Shared an AI music arrangement demo from our NeurIPS 2024 paper.
  10. Nov 2024
    At ISMIR 2024 as a volunteer, also helping with MIREX.
  11. Sep 2024
    Our paper Structured Multi-Track Accompaniment Arrangement via Style Prior Modelling is accepted at NeurIPS 2024.
  12. Nov 2023
    At ISMIR 2023 in Milan with a co-authored paper and a late-breaking demo.
  13. Aug 2023
    Attended IJCAI 2023 in Macau.
  14. May 2023
    Our paper Q&A: Query-Based Representation Learning for Multi-Track Symbolic Music re-Arrangement is accepted at IJCAI 2023.
  15. Dec 2022
    Attended ISMIR 2022 in Bengaluru.
  16. Nov 2022
    Organised a concert combining music and AI at the NUS School of Computing. Video recordings are available.
  17. Aug 2022
    Two papers accepted at ISMIR 2022: Beat Transformer and Domain Adversarial Training on C-VAE.
  18. Nov 2021
    Directed the lab showcase video for the NUS Sound and Music Computing Lab at ISMIR 2021.
  19. Aug 2021
    Started my PhD candidature at the National University of Singapore.
  20. Jul 2021
    My first paper, AccoMontage: Accompaniment Arrangement via Phrase Selection and Style Transfer, is accepted at ISMIR 2021.
  21. Jun 2021
    Graduated with a B.E. with honours from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and served as a senior volunteer at NIME 2021.
  22. Jun 2020
    Started my internship as a research assistant at the Music X Lab, NYU Shanghai, advised by Prof. Gus Xia.

Selected Publications

  1. Learning Music Style for Piano Arrangement Through Cross-Modal Bootstrapping

    J. Zhao, G. Xia, Z. Wang, and Y. Wang

    In Proceedings of ISMIR 2026; also in NeurIPS 2025 AI4Music Workshop

  2. Beat-U: Multi-Task Music Understanding with Hierarchical Timescales

    J. Zhao, R. Nishiyama, K. Sumi, T. Fujishima, and A. Maezawa

    In ISMIR 2025 MIREX Challenge

  3. Structured Multi-Track Accompaniment Arrangement via Style Prior Modelling

    J. Zhao, G. Xia, Z. Wang, and Y. Wang

    In Proceedings of NeurIPS 2024

  5. Q&A: Query-Based Representation Learning for Multi-Track Symbolic Music re-Arrangement

    J. Zhao, G. Xia, and Y. Wang

    In Proceedings of IJCAI 2023 (Special Track on AI, the Arts and Creativity)

Academic Activities

Community Service

  • ISMIR 2026
    Publications Chair
  • MIREX 2024–2025
    Task Captain
  • Reviewing
    • NeurIPS 2023–2026
    • ICLR 2024–2025
    • ICML 2023–2024
    • ACM Multimedia 2024
    • TISMIR
    • IEEE TASLP
    • ACM TOMM
    • EURASIP
  • Volunteering
    • ISMIR 2024–2025
    • IJCAI 2023
    • NIME 2021

Talks & Exhibitions

  • Nov 2025
    Invited talk, Kyoto University — Music Content and Style Analysis for Controllable Music Arrangement
  • Jun 2025
    Invited talk, National Taiwan University — Generative AI for Stylistic & Structured Music Arrangement
  • Oct 2023
    Invited talk, Singapore University of Technology and Design — A Hierarchical Roadmap to Music Representation Learning and Pop Music Orchestration
  • May 2023
    Invited exhibitor, IDS Open House — Music Style Transfer for Full-Band Accompaniment Arrangement
  • Nov 2022
    Event chair and performer, NUS Sound and Music Computing Concert [videos]

Selected Music Activities

  • Piano
    Edward Elgar — Salut d'Amour, Op. 12 [video]
  • Accordion
    Vittorio Monti — Csárdás, violin and accordion duet [video]
  • Demo
    Interactive arrangement with AccoMontage — Auld Lang Syne [video]
  • Lab Showcase
    NUS Sound and Music Computing Lab at ISMIR 2021 [video]