Artificial Intelligence for Musical Cultural Heritage: Preservation, Interpretation, and Human-Centered Creativity at the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping the preservation, interpretation, management, and reactivation of musical cultural heritage, especially in domains affected by technological obsolescence such as computer music, electroacoustic works, and analog audio archives. This perspective and case-study article examines the research trajectory of the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale (CSC) of the University of Padua through three analytically selected research directions: AI-assisted musical co-creation, multimodal generative systems informed by psychophysical research, and AI-based preservation of musical cultural heritage. The cases were selected because they represent complementary relationships between human expertise and computation (creative dialogue, perceptually grounded generation, and historically informed preservation) and because they include both completed studies and ongoing implementations. The article distinguishes previously published results, current implementations, and prospective components. It argues that the CSC case contributes a historically grounded model in which AI augments rather than replaces musical, archival, and interpretative expertise. Case studies include generative models for Disklavier performance, multimodal systems connecting sound with taste and emotion, a custom OCR and RAG workflow for Music V, and AI modules for analog-audio preservation within the MPAI/IEEE-CAE ARP framework.