Category Archives: Photos
From Tod Machover’s Facebook profile:
Terrific launch to the New Creations Festival at the Toronto Symphony last evening. Great crowd (with lots of young people), fun pre-show with Youth Symphony giving excerpts of my A TORONTO SYMPHONY, varied show with my “Jeux Deux”, Nicole Lizee’s classic videogame-inspired “Arcadiac”, and Mason Bates’ rocking, resonant “Alternative Energy.” As lively an orchestral program as anyone was likely to have heard, with Mason DJ’ing in the lobby afterwards. And this is just the beginning.
For more information, check out the Toronto Symphony’s Media Room
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Leave a comment | tags: Arts Festivals, symphony orchestras | posted in Performance News, Photos
From Tod Machover’s Facebook page: “Terrific new pictures by photographer Jean-Claude Dhien, taken at the MIT Media Lab last month. They were commissioned by France’s Télérama magazine, which for some reason decided to run a totally different set of images for their story last week. I prefer these!!!”
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Leave a comment | tags: MIT Media Lab, music technology, Opera of the Future, Press | posted in Photos
From Tod Machover’s Facebook:
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Matt Haimovitz’s cello (case:) taking a rest in a lovely spot in the University of Missouri journalism school, just before our panel on “Music and New Media” with music critics Greg Sandow and Tim Page and members of the Eighth Blackbird ensemble. Good crowd, interesting questions.
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Univ. of Missouri assembled a terrific group of people for their new music festival this week. Here I am at their superb faculty dining room, with Matt Haimovitz, Greg Sandow, Tim Page, Rob Shay (head of music department), and other U of M faculty.
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Matt Haimovitz rehearsing for his Thursday eve concert at University of Missouri. He played 3 pieces of mine, plus we improvised – with me on keyboard and laptop – using specially prepared material from my piece, VinylCello, that I wrote for him a few years ago.
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Central quadrangle – with columns from a previous building – at University of Missouri. Was there for new music festival, and had fun giving keynote talk, lectures, master classes, and concert with Matt Haimovitz. Perfect fall weather too.
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Leave a comment | tags: MIT Media Lab, music technology, Tod Machover | posted in Photos
The Dalai Lama visited M.I.T. earlier this week to give a series of talks hosted by the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values. The Opera of the Future group in collaboration with Tenzin Priyadarshi, MIT’s Buddhist Chaplain and Director of the Dalai Lama Center at MIT, and the Blue Heron vocal ensemble, produced a fascinating experiment in the M.I.T. Chapel. Here are a few fun photos providing a glimpse. We’ll be posting more about this later.
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Leave a comment | tags: artistic collaboration, MIT Media Lab, music and health, music and spirit, Vocal Vibrations | posted in Behind the Scenes, Photos
Tod’s weekend in Toronto. Photos from Tod Machover’s Facebook. Click on image to see full size.
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Spent a lovely Sunday morning at the base of the CN Tower (Toronto) with the fabulous FYI group of young hip-hop artists and mentors, experimenting and vocalizing for A TORONTO SYMPHONY.
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That thing on my back is a cello, something I haven’t carried around for years. This lovely instrument – graciously lent by Toronto Symphony cellist David Hetherington – allowed me to “perform” sounds of Toronto at Saturday’s big celebration in honor of what would have been Glenn Gould’s 80th. Majestic, quirky, and sometimes bittersweet event for this genius who influenced and presaged so much, but also became a more and more lonely recluse.
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Glenn Gould – ummm Rick Miller – at this weekend’s wonderfully eclectic Glenn Gould event at U of Toronto’s Convocation Hall. Robert Wilson, Atom Egoyan, Lang Lang, the Lombard Twins, etc., etc…..and me on cello, for the first time live in a VERY long time. Only for Glenn Gould:)
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Toronto’s CN Tower where we experimented with all kinds of vocal acrobatics – from screaming to whispering to multiple renditions of O Canada! – with the young hip-hop artists of the FYI collective. About as fun and inspiring a Sunday morning as I’ve spent in a long time. We all got to go to the tippy top of the Tower after singing-recording.
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These photos of the firework finale at the Edinburgh Festival are just too spectacular not to share! So, what are some 21st-century ideas for merging music, technology and gunpowder? From Tod Machover’s Facebook album, where he writes:
Had VIP seats for the end-of-Festival fireworks last evening in Princes Gardens just below Edinburgh Castle. Remarkable to see colored fire streaming down from castle as well as shooting upwards. Scottish Chamber Orchestra was conducted by my dear friend/colleague Garry Walker (who premiered “Skellig”). And Walton-VaughnWilliams-Prokovieff program was both bombastic and sensitive. Looks like I might have a chance to “play with fire” at this event next year; we’ll see!!!
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Composer Tod Machover swung through Edinburgh this past weekend to meet with Festival organizers. Looks like he also found time to explore the city. Here are some photos from Tod’s Facebook album, with his comments! Click on the photos to enlarge.
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Classic shot of Edinburgh Castle hovering over Princes Gardens. Nothing quite like it.
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Yup, they really do play bagpipes over here…and this guy played quite well. Two women drove up with their big black dogs, and maneouvered for 15 minutes or so so that the dogs would stay put so she (and I:) could snap this shot.
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Lobby sitting area in the very nice Edinburgh hotel where I am staying. Pure Georgian outside, pure “mod” inside.
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Gorgeous Usher Hall where I attended a concert last evening by the RSNO playing Ives, Feldman and Walton. Felt fulfilled after the Ives and Feldman (and exhausted with jetlag) so left at intermission.
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Characters of all sorts prowl around Edinburgh at night, including this sort-of Dracula with a sort-of medieval-type hangman guy. Snapped their picture; didn’t take their tour.
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From years ago, I remember the mediaeval “skyscrapers” in Edinburgh. The town was so dense and crowded – and one apparently had to pay a tax to go past the city walls – that buildings were very vertical and also deep. Also interestingly, different classes and métiers mixed in the same buildings. Tell that to Mitt Romney!!!
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Georgian building in Edinburgh turned into…god knows what?!?!?
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Here’s the unfinished Parthenon on Calton Hill, high above Edinburgh.
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Arthur’s Seat, the amazing land formation in the center of Edinburgh, right at the end of the Royal Mile and next to Holyrood Palace. My mom and I went up there for a picnic when we were here a VERY long time ago. My dad was giving a talk at a big computer graphics conference in the center of the city.
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One of the best ideas I’ve seen in a while: a pop-up motel/hotel installed in Edinburgh for the Festival. The UK organization apparently has a few of these which they rotate to different festival sites. Nice place to visit; wouldn’t want to live there:)
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Edinburgh’s Royal Mile on a Sunday afternoon.
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Home of John Knox, one of Scotland’s great Protestant reformers.
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This guy played the musical saw very very well. Liked his hat too.
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He sure LOOKED like Mel Gibson but he has a sword so I was afraid to ask:)
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The Edinburgh International Festival has its its offices – called The Hub – in this church on the Royal Mile.
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Ramsay Gardens, a stone’s throw from Edinburgh Castle, and a quiet, beautiful oasis. This is where I’d want to live in Edinburgh…..
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One of Edinburgh’s many astonishing juxtapositions.
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These mediaeval buildings are tall tall tall.
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I guess Princes Gardens has become the official “mobile zone” for Edinburgh:)
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Leave a comment | tags: arts, Arts Festivals, music, Tod Machover | posted in Photos
WIRED UK was at the MIT Media Lab last week to do a photo shoot. The Lab – including the Opera of the Future group – will be prominently featured in an upcoming issue.
Photo team from WIRED UK preparing a shot in my group area at the Media Lab today. “How many photographers does it take to shoot a mad composer/inventor?”
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Leave a comment | tags: Hyperinstruments, MIT Media Lab, music technology, Press, Tod Machover | posted in Photos
Tod was in New York on Thursday recording a new song, “Open Up the House,” for soprano and piano, commissioned by Opera America to celebrate the opening of the new National Opera Center in Manhattan next month. Forty new songs – a real cross-section of contemporary American music – have been created and recorded for the occasion. It will be issued in a 3-CD set.
Tae Kim, piano, and Merrin Lazyan, soprano, recording “Open Up the House” in NYC.
From Tod’s Facebook page:
First page of score to “Open Up the House,” brand new song composed for the opening of the National Opera Center next month. I reworked the wonderful poems by Letha Hafferkamp (Kiddie) which she wrote for me almost 40 years ago, and which I set for my very first song cycle, “Three Songs.” I reused and further twisted some of the strange musical hooks from that earlier cycle in this new song. So writing this piece has been a wonderful experience of starting fresh with something from my beginnings…reassuring to know that it seems to have worked out. The song sounded great yesterday and should make a terrific recording.
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Leave a comment | tags: new music, opera, Tod Machover | posted in Behind the Scenes, Photos, Tod Machover
