The Global TV documentary on A Toronto Symphony aired last week. It shows many pivotal behind-the-scenes moments in the creation of the piece. We hear Tod is working on a video compilation that will include more music. In the meantime, you can watch this documentary by clicking here. (Correction: We have replaced the incorrect link in our original post with the correct link).
From Tod Machover’s Facebook page:
Did a fun live interview today on BBC Radio Scotland about my new Edinburgh “Festival City” collaborative symphony project. It was for a brand new show – The Culture Studio with Janice Forsyth – that premiered…today! My segment starts at 1:34:00 and runs to the end of the show http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rlrmh. There is also a fantastic interview with David Hendy (at 1:21:00), a UK media historian, who talks about the role of noise in human history (and even plays a soundscape from an imagined early 19th century Edinburgh. Plus a superb interview with Annie Lennox (at 0:04:21). Enjoy the lot of it!!
Listen to The Culture Studio with Janice Forsyth here, with guests Annie Lennox, Kristin Scott Thomas, David Hendy and Tod Machover.
The Discovery Channel’s Daily Planet program visits Toronto for an inside look at “A Toronto Symphony”.
Watch the video here (between 3:00-6:00, roughly)!
No rest for the weary! This just in from the Edinburgh Festival:
A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with Philip Glass and Patti Smith; a new commission from experimental artist Laurie Anderson; a tribute to Frank Zappa; and a return to the festival for the Wooster Group with the company’s inspired (re)take of Hamlet, complete with Richard Burton film footage.
Read all about it at the Edinburgh Festival Guide. Sounds like an exciting line-up!! Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage
Saturday evening saw the successful debut of Tod Machover’s “A Toronto Symphony”, described aptly by conductor Peter Oundjian in this BBC News interview as “the most collaborative piece of music that has ever been written.” Nearly a year in the making, the new work was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony for its New Creations Festival. Scored for a full symphony orchestra, the half-hour-long piece involved thousands of citizens of Toronto who contributed acoustic samples, compositions, and manipulated parts of the work-in-progress using apps developed by the Opera of the Future group at the M.I.T. Media Lab.
You can see footage of some of the collaborative activities as well as hear parts of the world premiere performance in the BBC News video here: Tod Machover: composer’s social media symphony for Toronto.
Vikram K. Mulligan photo
The Opera of the Future team has been sleepless in Toronto, frantically finishing the audio and visuals that will accompany the world premiere of “A Toronto Symphony” whilst squeezing in rehearsals in between New Creations Festival performances. Tickets are available here.
The spectacle will spill out beyond the confines of Roy Thomson Hall to take over the landmark CN Tower! Music blogger John Terauds broke the news in this story: News flash: CN Tower to make Toronto Symphony Orchestra début on Saturday night:
The finished piece is clocking in at nearly 30 minutes, which means that there will be thousands of people unaware of the concert gawping at the city’s tallest landmark wondering what the heck is going on.
“We were given all the controls, even the one to make it brighter,” said Machover, with more than a hint of glee.
Here’s the official press release. The performance will be live streamed via TSO.CA, starting around 9:00PM EST this Saturday, March 9.
Here is what the press has been saying:
NEW! Toronto Life - The Argument: Musical visionary Tod Machover crowd-sourced a symphony for Toronto—now other cities want one too - “The Toronto experiment demonstrates that our most precious creative resource is not necessarily crowds of eager, iPhone-wielding amateurs, but rather a few utopian-minded geniuses like Machover who believe there are better and more fun ways to make music than sitting alone in a room.”
Toronto NOW - Tod Machover: What does Toronto sound like anyway? - “It’s not just about technology, but figuring out how the symphony can evolve into the 21st century,” he says. “The relationship between the public and artist, how we participate – I think all of that is going to change.”
Toronto Star - Toronto gets the symphony treatment - “Tod was really different. Mozart and Beethoven are not as crazy as Tod,” says the violinist from Oakville, who notes city sounds are entirely different than those of the suburbs. “Toronto is living, it doesn’t die, doesn’t sleep,” says Choi, 18. “It is filled with colours. There is a story on every street.”
Musical Toronto - A Toronto Symphony composer Tod Machover keeps adding interaction weeks before premiere ”A Toronto Symphony is a great exercise in harnessing the latest digital and social media tools for something that is normally a small, esoteric part of our larger culture. It is a great way to remind anyone of any age that creativity is not the domain of uniquely gifted individuals.”
Canadian Jewish News - New symphony features the sounds of Toronto - “Our city needs a symphony of our own, and it was due to Tod’s vision and the thousands of collaborators in Toronto, [that we could] create a music composition that will make us all proud,” said TSO music director Peter Oundjian, who will conduct the new composition.
Boosey & Hawkes has posted the score for A Toronto Symphony online.
Tod Machover is on the cover of this month’s International Arts Manager magazine (London-based), which also has a really good feature article about the “A Toronto Symphony” project and its implications:
According to Machover the Internet has opened up participation on a scale that at the moment we can’t fully appreciate. ‘We have a voice through this technology, so all those things exist but that does not mean that there are structures in place to make that work very well. I think that the really critical process that is going on right now – that will mark this period, and which I think my colleagues and I are indeed involved in – is how do you turn that new access and democracy into something that is powerful and rich and sophisticated and meaningful – rather than just chaotic?
Read the full article: Electric dreams: Composer and inventor Tod Machover on music and participatory practice
Photo by Megan Meister, Dallas Opera
One of the operabots from the cast of Death and the Powers went AWOL a few days ago from the Media Lab. It turned up yesterday in, of all places, the Dallas Cowboys Stadium! Apparently it was invited there to help publicize the Dallas Opera’s 2013-2014 season, which will include a simulcast of Turandot this April. Death and the Powers performances are scheduled for February 12, 14, 15 and 16 of next year.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Opera’s production of Death and the Powers “will feature baritone Robert Orth as the dying entrepreneur Simon Powers, soprano Joélle Harvey as Miranda, mezzo Patricia Risley as Evvy and tenor Hal Cazalet as Nicholas.
“Employing cutting-edge technology, the production will be directed by Diane Paulus, designed by Alex McDowell and conducted by Nicole Paiement. A partnership with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will include special exhibits, lectures, demonstrations and workshops.”
Read the full story here: Dallas Opera announces 2013-14 season, ‘Turandot’ simulcast at Cowboys Stadium
More coverage here: Culturemap Dallas: Dallas Opera goes big for 2013-14 season, with another Cowboys Stadium simulcast
With less than a month (!) to go until the world premiere of “A Toronto Symphony”, we’re starting to see some press coverage. Check out this excellent feature story in the city’s leading general circulation magazine, Toronto Life. To order tickets for the March 9 premiere, click here.
It’s both fabulous and quite insane,” [conductor Peter] Oundjian says of Machover’s creation. “Only Tod would even think you could create a symphony from thousands of little ideas that come to you via the Internet.
Big news! Tod emerged from his barn (amid accumulating drifts of snow from the Big Blizzard of ’13) with the just-completed manuscript for “A Toronto Symphony”. With that behemoth off his plate, looks like he found a free moment to Google around and post on his Facebook page:
I just came across this hilarious drawing of a London conference (at the Barbican) that I Skyped into this past year to discuss remote collaboration (fittingly) with Punchdrunk Theater on Sleep No More. Fun transcript of the session at http://www.unthinkableconsulting.com/blog/tag/punchdrunk
By Sarah Turner, Unthinkable Consulting
