Francisco Camas has been involved in RESOUND since the inception of the project, shaping the computational methods aimed at recovering the ancient sounds of the Hispanic repertory. He has also played a key role in defining the project's foundational hypotheses. Dr. Camas heads the Melomics and Chant Recovery Lab, a core component of RESOUND, where he is pioneering an innovative pipeline that applies concepts and tools from Genomics to Middle Age liturgical chant. Each chant is treated as a cultural meme, paralleling the concept of a gene in Life Sciences —hence Melomics, a "Genomics of melodies".
Original thoughts come at a cost! This groundbreaking approach is the product of a non-linear professional journey full of unexpected turns and creative exploration. Dr. Camas holds a PhD in Physics (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), specializing in the interdisciplinary fields of Systems and Synthetic Biology. He has held postdoctoral positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (working on the Genomics of the Microbiome) and spent years teaching Harmony—with a special focus on the rediscovered Neapolitan partimento school—and related disciplines at Music Conservatories. This eclectic background offers a unique perspective to "connect the dots" between seemingly distant fields of knowledge in long-term projects, from freelance initiatives like The Totmundo Project (focused on the optical recognition of Hispanic neumes) to well-funded endeavors such as RESOUND and its immediate technological predecessor, SONHIS.
Dr. Camas's creativity extends to playful yet profound experiments, including The Stellar Choir (transforming starlight into sound), the first melogram score of the Tarzan Yell, and the microtonal transcription of Flamenco music —a natural fit for someone born in Cádiz, Andalusia, in southern Spain.