Here are five drawings done by Rohan McDonald (age 13) during the June rehearsals of Tod Machover’s Death and the Powers at the MIT Media Lab. Rohan is about to enter the ninth grade at Cambridge Montessori School, and maintains interests in singing, acting, guitar-playing, and drawing, among others. He studies guitar with Jerry Bussiere, …
Sunday Rehearsal at Cutler Majestic
I'm currently sitting in the audience at Cutler Majestic Theater in Boston watching Jim and Joelle rehearse one of the pivotal scenes in the opera. "We evolved as meat to want sugar and fat/once that was good, but now that is fatal," croons Jim, writhing in anguish on a blanket on stage. I watch mesmerized …
Royal Society for the Arts -The Future of Music
RSA series - Tod Machover in conversation with John Kennedy. In the future will everyone be an artist distributing their work over the Web? The tendency is for the quality to settle in the middle. If artists can engage fully with their audience to critique and guide work, the quality should get better. Is there …
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Big Thinkers: Tod Machover
Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover talks about his musical vision in the Big Thinkers series on TechTV. Lots of fascinating footage... Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
First Rehearsals – Slide Show!
Posted by June We thought you'd enjoy these photographs taken during the first set of rehearsals in June 2010. Can't wait to find out how these look on stage with lighting and imagery!!
Nature interview with Tod
The current issue of Nature features an interview with Tod about Death and the Powers. Because the venerable science journal lacks a music or opera review section (what an oversight!), the interview ended up under Book reviews. In the interview, Tod explains why he has been drawn time and again to creating operas: "With the …
Death and the Powers Ticket Site Now Open
Buy tickets for the Monaco premiere of Death and the Powers. Shows run on September 24th (invitation only), September 25th (8pm), and September 26th (3pm and 8pm). Ticket prices begin at 80 euros. About Death and the Powers "When the eccentric patriarch Simon Powers departs his physical being and downloads himself into The System, his …
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Lunch at the Consulate General of Monaco in New York
Yesterday, Tod was invited to lunch at the Consulate General of Monaco in New York as the guest of honor to speak to top members of the U.S. press about Death and the Powers. The event aimed to introduce the press to the Monaco premiere of the opera, as well as interest them in covering Powers …
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Memory Download Sequence Shoot
Last weekend the cast and crew ventured out to Tod's farm in Waltham, MA to film scenes from the memory download sequence. Directed by Matt Checkowski of The Department of The 4th Dimension, the shoot began in the early morning at the Media Lab and ended up out in Waltham at around 7 PM, at …
Boston Magazine feature on Machover
Tod is on a media roll this week... here's a terrific article in Boston Magazine - Genius Composition: How professor Tod Machover and a group of MIT scientists are creating the future of music. Here's a quote: "Machover believes the music - not the technology - is the message. And if this means alienating the …
Opera of the Future 