Stefan Balke

Hello, I’m Stefan. I completed my PhD in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) in 2017, working in Meinard Müller’s group at AudioLabs Erlangen. After that, I spent a year as a PostDoc with Gerhard Widmer’s group at the Institute for Computational Perception at JKU Linz. I then worked for three years as a Data Scientist and Team Lead at a consulting company. In the winter term of 2023/24, I had the opportunity to teach as a professor at Hochschule Weserbergland in Hameln, Germany. Currently, I’m back at AudioLabs Erlangen as a PostDoc in Meinard Müller’s group, focusing my research on wind music. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my small family, playing the trumpet, and conducting a local concert band.

A detailed version of my curriculum vitae is available on request.

news

Dec 19, 2025	I was interviewed by the Hessischer Musikverband for my research. Full article is available here.
Apr 1, 2025	Together witch Meinard Müller, the DfG granted us a research project on wind music and MIR!
Sep 1, 2024	Re-joining AudioLabs Erlangen to conduct research on wind music. 🎺 Many thanks to Meinard Müller to give me this opportunity!

selected publications

ChoraleBricks: A Modular Multitrack Dataset for Wind Music Research

Stefan Balke, Axel Berndt, and Meinard Müller

Transaction of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (TISMIR), 8(1), 39–54, 2025

Code Bib

@article{BalkeBM25_ChoraleBricks_TISMIR,
  author = {Balke, Stefan and Berndt, Axel and M{\"u}ller, Meinard},
  title = {{ChoraleBricks}: {A} Modular Multitrack Dataset for Wind Music Research},
  journal = {Transaction of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval ({TISMIR})},
  volume = {8},
  number = {1},
  pages = {39--54},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.5334/tismir.252},
  url-pdf = {2025_BalkeBM_ChoraleBricks_TISMIR_ePrint.pdf},
  url-demo = {https://www.audiolabs-erlangen.de/resources/MIR/2025-ChoraleBricks},
  code = {https://github.com/stefan-balke/choralebricks},
  url-details = {https://transactions.ismir.net/articles/10.5334/tismir.252},
  selected = {true}
}

Score Following as a Multi-Modal Reinforcement Learning Problem

Florian Henkel, Stefan Balke, Matthias Dorfer, and Gerhard Widmer

Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (TISMIR), 2(1), 67–81, 2019

PDF Code Bib

@article{HenkelBDW19_ScoFoRL_TISMIR,
  author = {Henkel, Florian and Balke, Stefan and Dorfer, Matthias and Widmer, Gerhard},
  title = {Score Following as a Multi-Modal Reinforcement Learning Problem},
  journal = {Transactions of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval ({TISMIR})},
  volume = {2},
  number = {1},
  pages = {67--81},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {http://doi.org/10.5334/tismir.31},
  abbr = {TISMIR},
  selected = {true},
  pdf = {2019_HenkelBDW_ScoreFollowingRL_TISMIR.pdf},
  code = {https://github.com/CPJKU/score_following_game}
}

Cross-Modal Music Retrieval and Applications: An Overview of Key Methodologies

Meinard Müller, Andreas Arzt, Stefan Balke, Matthias Dorfer, and Gerhard Widmer

IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 36(1), 52–62, 2019

PDF Bib

@article{MuellerABDW19_MusicRetrieval_IEEE-SPM,
  author = {M{\"u}ller, Meinard and Arzt, Andreas and Balke, Stefan and Dorfer, Matthias and Widmer, Gerhard},
  title = {Cross-Modal Music Retrieval and Applications: An Overview of Key Methodologies},
  journal = {{IEEE} Signal Processing Magazine},
  volume = {36},
  number = {1},
  pages = {52--62},
  year = {2019},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1109/MSP.2018.2868887},
  doi = {10.1109/MSP.2018.2868887},
  pdf = {2019_MuellerABDW_MusicRetrieval_IEEE-SPM_arXiv.pdf},
  abbr = {IEEE-SPM},
  selected = {true}
}