Mathematics, and more generally computational sciences, intervene in several
aspects of music. Mathematics describes the acoustics of the sounds giving
formal tools to physics, and the matter of music itself in terms of
compositional structures and strategies. Mathematics can also be applied to the
entire making of music, from the score to the performance, connecting
compositional structures to acoustical reality of sounds. Moreover, the precise
concept of gesture has a decisive role in understanding musical performance. In
this paper, we apply some concepts of category theory to compare gestures of
orchestral musicians, and to investigate the relationship between orchestra and
conductor, as well as between listeners and conductor/orchestra. To this aim,
we will introduce the concept of gestural similarity. The mathematical tools
used can be applied to gesture classification, and to interdisciplinary
comparisons between music and visual arts.Comment: The final version of this paper has been published by the Journal of
Mathematics and Musi
