Yahir Hernandez (b.2004) is a guitarist, producer, and music technologist from Chicago, with roots in Latin music and jazz. He performed for five years with the Chicago Latin Music Project and has formal training in jazz theory and classical guitar. His current research explores signal processing and machine learning methods for improved chord recognition on jazz audio recordings.
He graduated from MIT in 2026 with a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering and Music. At MIT, he studied jazz harmony, electronic music, and machine learning and signal processing for audio. He also received the Gregory Tucker Memorial Prize, in recognition of exceptional ability in composition, performance, music technology, and overall contributions to the Music and Theater Arts Section at MIT.
In summer 2026, he interned at Hiya in Seattle on voice AI and won the company's Voice AI Innovation Challenge with Voz, a real-time pipeline connecting speech to live-coded music.
