Commissioned and Performed by Sejong Soloists
Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, Korea
August 24, 2024
Information about the performance HERE.
On August 24, Tod Machover will be in Seoul, Korea to conduct the world premiere of his latest composition — FLOW Symphony — at Seoul Arts Center, performed by Sejong Soloists, who commissioned the new piece. FLOW Symphony is scored for string orchestra and electronics, and employs a custom-designed AI system to both enhance the performance and to create a constantly transforming online version that allows the piece to be experienced in many different forms. “Flow” refers specifically to the process and the movement of rivers, one of which — outside of Stowe, Vermont — Machover recorded extensively to create acoustic material for the piece. Along with a varied collection of specially recorded “river-like” sounds developed with Sejong Soloists, Machover and his team at the MIT Media Lab created an AI model based entirely on Machover’s original sounds/music that can morph between natural sounds (like a running river) and musical ones (created by an ensemble, like a string orchestra), between simplicity and complexity, and between calm and intensity.
Listen to an excerpt from FLOW Symphony with string orchestra alone and with strings-and-river morphed through the new AI Radio system.
During the performance, live string playing is injected into the AI system, which reacts with hybrid sounds that “shape” water in musical ways. “In the online version,” says Machover, “the AI system acts like an ‘AI Radio,’ allowing the listener to use dials to redirect the development of the composition, delving into detail and exploring favorite harmonies, melodies and textures, all the while retaining the overall shape and feel – the personality – of the piece. Like a river, FLOW Symphony is always changing but always the same, revealing new sonic secrets as one listens more carefully,” Machover explains. “It is somehow both deeply calming and seriously stimulating.”
Work on the online version of the piece will continue after the August premiere with the goal of presenting U.S. performances of the final form — along with an AI Radio app and online version — in Spring 2025.
Opera of the Future 