From Tod's Facebook - "Next "unusual" project: I've invited the whole city of Toronto to join me to compose an orchestra piece, on commission from the Toronto Symphony. I'll be curating their New Creations festival next season, and this will be a centerpiece. Premiere in March 2013; more info soon. The project was announced today …
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Last week Tod spoke to delegates gathered for the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) seminar of "The Art of Music Education." He returned home all fired up about the city of Hamburg and the extraordinary new buildings that are rising up there. Especially impressive was the Elbphilharmonie building which will soar above the waters of …
This week, the European Concert Hall Organization (ECHO) is convening its seminar on music education, The Art of Music Education Volume III, Hamburg 25-27 January 2012. Tod Machover will be addressing the gathering on Friday, January 27, to speak about "New technologies for audience engagement." In addition to reviewing past projects ("Brain Opera" and "Toy Symphony" …
Continue reading "January 27 – Tod Machover speaking at ECHO in Hamburg"
Los Angeles Times music critic Mark Swed made the 90-minute drive up to Santa Barbara last week to attend Tod Machover's talk on "Music, Mind and Health: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Well-being through Active Sound," one of four lectures he gave recently at the university's Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. In today's issue, Swed …
Continue reading "Los Angeles Times on Tod Machover’s vision for personalized music"
The M.I.T. Media Lab attracts people whose quirky passions and eclectic skill make them misfits in traditional academic departments. Founding director Nicholas Negroponte likes to call the lab a salon de refusés, a roomful of rejects. One such refusé was Ben Bloomberg, an undergraduate who loves pop music and entertainment technology. In the current issue of …
This is a lovely holiday surprise!! Chicago Classical Review named Death and the Powers among The Top 10 Performances of 2011. The review states: "Tod Machover’s envelope-pushing Death and the Powers was the undisputed opera highlight of the year in Chicago." That's humbling considering the vibrant, outstanding opera scene for which the Windy City has long been known. Read the rest of …
Tod Machover posted on his Facebook page: "Composing legend Terry Riley finished a week-long residency at MIT by giving a concert on Thursday evening in collaboration with MIT's gamelan ensemble. A wacky, wonderful California-infused twist on minimalism, with repeated figures (often in the left hand), delirious and quirky melodies, and soulful jabs from clarinet, processed …
Via Tod Machover's weekly favorites list, here's a fabulous YouTube by rap artist Ice Cube talking about the city of Angels. A plain-spoken, moving tribute to the design philosophy of Charles and Ray Eames. He lets loose gems like "They was doin' mash-ups before mash-ups ever existed."
This talk occurred earlier this year and just showed up on YouTube. It provides an excellent overview of the work by Tod Machover's Hyperinstruments and Opera of the Future groups at the MIT Media Lab. Speaking from the Media Lab to the Munich audience via a video conferencing system, Tod and his students demonstrate the …
Never a dull moment in Tod Machover's life! Last week, Gary Grice aka GZA/The Genius, a founding member of rap supergroup the Wu-Tang Clan, paid Tod a visit at the Media Lab. Turns out that GZA is a science/tech groupie! Two days later, Tod was visiting the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. There, he had a chance encounter with …
Opera of the Future 