The current issue of the Juilliard Journal is devoted to “Technology and the Arts,” a bold, good move for this bastion of traditional classical music! The issue includes an interesting interview with Tod Machover. Tod discusses how he first became intrigued by computers when he was studying composition at Juilliard, how he arrived at IRCAM and the MIT Media Lab, and some of his ideas for the future of music.
Read the full interview here.
Tod Machover (B.M. ’73, M.M. ’75, composition) is one of the world’s pre-eminent practitioners of and spokesmen for the intersections of music and technology. But the first time he wanted to learn to program a computer was soon after he arrived at Juilliard, to study with Elliott Carter (faculty 1966-84). “One of the reasons I was interested in studying with Carter was that I was really interested in complexity in my music,” says Machover, who recalls writing a string trio in which each instrument was slowing down or speeding up independent of the others. It was so complicated that he couldn’t convince anyone to play it, and “a sort of lightbulb went off,” he said, adding that he thought “computers are out there, and if you have an idea and can learn how to program, you should be able to model it.”
Opera of the Future 