Meet Shimon, the marimba-playing robot that can improvise with fluency and skill exceeding that of most professional musicians. This atypical frontman’s band isn’t your average performance group either: Shimon’s band of humans hails not from a conservatory, but from the Center for Music Technology at Georgia Tech. And did we mention the drummer lays the rhythm with a bionic arm? Shimon and Friends’ sound is a treat for music enthusiasts, but hearing it also conjures greater questions: Can computers be creative? If creativity can rise from human-machine partnership, need we rethink its definition? (Featuring Daniel Gelman on trumpet.) Speakers: Gil Weinberg, Mason Bretan, Jason Barnes, Deepak Gopinath