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Tag Archives: Tod Machover
City to light up for “A Toronto Symphony”
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.
Instrumentation for “A Toronto Symphony”
In case you are wondering why Tod didn’t emerge from his barn-studio for the past two months, he was busy orchestrating “A Toronto Symphony.” In this new SoundNotion interview, Tod explains his work process, along with sundry other hot topics from the Media Lab and Opera of the Future. (The interview was recorded over Skype, and you can see bits of the barn in the background.)
A symphony orchestra work has a whole lot of parts! Just to give you an idea, here’s the list of instruments (not including strings) for the piece:
This week: KQED Interviews with Tod Machover
Mark your calendars! San Francisco’s public radio TV station KQED will be airing a one-hour-long interview with Tod Machover this week. Here’s the scoop:
Meet musician and inventor Tod Machover, the creator of technologies behind “Guitar Hero” and ”Rock Band.” Computer History Museum’s John Hollar speaks to the influential composer, whose work has been performed internationally, about the future of digital music and his research as the professor of music and media at MIT Media Lab, where he directs the Opera of the Future group.
UPCOMING BROADCASTS:
• KQED Plus: Tue, Feb 26, 2013 — 7:00pm
• KQED Plus: Wed, Feb 27, 2013 — 1:00am
• KQED Plus: Wed, Feb 27, 2013 — 11:00pm
• KQED Plus: Thu, Feb 28, 2013 — 5:00am
Visit the KQED program page and scroll down. You can have an email reminder sent to you.
Hot off the press! “A Toronto Symphony”
Woo hoo! “A Toronto Symphony” is finished!! Here’s the first page of the score. Tod worked non-stop orchestrating it over the past month, with a major push in the middle of the weekend blizzard to assemble the complete score. He received invaluable help from a hardy band of Media Lab students and producers who trekked through thigh-deep snow to get down the unplowed driveway and out to the barn. The score was sent it off to conductor Peter Oundjian last night, and Tod will fly to Toronto on Thursday to go over everything with the orchestra. There’s still a huge amount of work to get the piece ready for its premiere on March 9th. Reserve your tickets here!
From Snowbound Waltham…
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
Machover’s Toronto project attracts global attention
Boston Globe. Art by Anna Parini.
Over the past year, composer Tod Machover and the Opera of the Future group have intrigued Toronto’s citizenry with their ambitious symphony orchestra project. Titled “A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City,” the project invites everyone in the city to help create the work in ways that Machover hopes will break fresh ground in artist-audience collaboration. As “A Toronto Symphony” approaches its world premiere on March 9, others are taking note. In an excellent feature story on the front page of today’s Boston Globe Arts section, chief music critic Jeremy Eichler provides an in-depth look at the project. Writes Eichler:
Ultimately, “A Toronto Symphony” will be judged…not just for its collaborative process but, like any other premiere, on its own artistic terms. But you can also bet that far more people will feel invested in the outcome of this commission than might be the case with a typical premiere. In that sense, Machover’s model has enormous potential for public engagement around new music.
Read the full article and watch the Boston Globe’s video interview with Tod Machover here: Sounds of a city: A new template for collaboration in Toronto
Machover giving Chamber Music America Keynote
Chamber Music America’s National Conference is coming to New York City this week, from January 17-20. This year’s conference is packed with sessions about building audiences, exploring fresh musical territory and navigating the technologies for sustaining music. Tod Machover will be giving the opening Keynote on Friday, January 15, 10:30 AM, on “High Tech Music: Problems and Potential.” Check it out!
New Machover song in Opera America Songbook
From Tod Machover’s Facebook page:
My recent song composed for the opening of the National Opera Center in New York – “Open Up the House” – is now available via iTunes. Brilliant text by Letha Hafferkamp Kiddie, and beautiful performances by Merrin Lazyan and Tae Kim (all Facebook – and real-life – dear friends).
Read more about it - listen, download music, order the score!
December Toronto Visit
Tod Machover visited Toronto last Friday to check in on the school kids who have been working on their musical contributions to the “A Toronto Symphony” project all fall. The visit is described in this terrific Musical Toronto post by John Terauds. Here are some cool photos and comments posted by Tod on his Facebook page. Click on images to enlarge.
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- On stage rehearsing with wonderful musicians from the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. We were preparing for Thursday’s stimulating concert/workshop with students from all around the city.
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- We had an amazing session on Thursday with3rd-to-6th graders from around Toronto who have been composing Hyperscore pieces for A TORONTO SYMPHONY. Great pieces and very smart kids.
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- On a photo shoot for Toronto Life magazine, continuing to record the city with little digital device and binaural ear-microphones.
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- The CN tower is omnipresent in Toronto, and somehow it is always juxtaposed with something interesting. The amazing news is that we met yesterday with the production team from the tower, and they are very interested in having us design an interactive illumination of the tower to accompany the A TORONTO SYMPHONY premiere in March. We’ll see…..
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- Beautiful fashion design studio of Rosemarie Umetsu, in Toronto’s Yorkville neighborhood. Rosemarie will be designing me a Toronto-themed outfit to wear for the A TORONTO SYMPHONY premiere in March. You’ll have to come to the concert to see the cool idea she has come up with:)
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- Designer Rosemarie Umetsu, the Toronto Symphony’s Jennie Green, and my colleague Peter Torpey (creator of Media Scores – http://toronto.media.mit.edu/scores) at Rosemarie’s fashion design studio in Toronto. Very very cool place.
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- My music stand before conducting a concert/workshop for 35d-to-6th graders in Toronto on Thursday. Kids from all over the city had written Toronto-themed Hyperscore pieces; we played some back from the computer and transcribed others so they could be played by members of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra (like “The Art Gallery” here.
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- School kids filling up the auditorium at our Hyperscore-related event in Toronto on Thursday.
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- One of the heads of music for Toronto Public Schools – Janice Lewis – addresses a wonderful group of “young composers” and collaborators at our performance/workshop on Thursday.
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- I have always LOVED the skyscrapers in downtown Toronto, so bold and clean and – seemingly – super-tall; all sharp-edges and etched in light by night. I used to call Toronto “Skyscraper Heaven” when I commuted there in the late 70s when I was studying at Juilliard, but was also principal cellist of the Canadian Opera touring company. The city has only gotten bolder and more beautiful since then.
- "Mr. Machover's new quartet, "... but not simpler ...," is a vigorous, exciting study in speediness, full of tremolando figures, racing lines and iridescent passages.."
- The New York Times
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