No rest for the weary! This just in from the Edinburgh Festival: A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with Philip Glass and Patti Smith; a new commission from experimental …
Continue reading "Edinburgh Festival announces new Machover commission"
Saturday evening saw the successful debut of Tod Machover's "A Toronto Symphony", described aptly by conductor Peter Oundjian in this BBC News interview as "the most collaborative piece of music that has ever been written." Nearly a year in the making, the new work was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony for its New Creations Festival. …
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 …
Continue reading "City to light up for “A Toronto Symphony”"
Tod Machover is on the cover of this month's International Arts Manager magazine (London-based), which also has a really good feature article about the "A Toronto Symphony" project and its implications: According to Machover the Internet has opened up participation on a scale that at the moment we can’t fully appreciate. ‘We have a voice through …
Continue reading "In-depth article on Toronto Symphony project"
One of the operabots from the cast of Death and the Powers went AWOL a few days ago from the Media Lab. It turned up yesterday in, of all places, the Dallas Cowboys Stadium! Apparently it was invited there to help publicize the Dallas Opera's 2013-2014 season, which will include a simulcast of Turandot this …
With less than a month (!) to go until the world premiere of "A Toronto Symphony", we're starting to see some press coverage. Check out this excellent feature story in the city's leading general circulation magazine, Toronto Life. To order tickets for the March 9 premiere, click here. It's both fabulous and quite insane," [conductor …
Continue reading "Toronto Life spotlights “A Toronto Symphony”"
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 …
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 …
Continue reading "Machover’s Toronto project attracts global attention"
Check out this post on PBS's MediaShift blog about Tod Machover's project for the Toronto Symphony. The interview focuses on how the project is exploring and extending what it means to engage in a creative collaboration, and the role technology plays in mediating that interaction. There's fresh interview material, a nice collection of videos and …
Here's a feature in the UK's The Guardian about the Toronto Symphony project. Good to see that word has made it across the pond. Check out: The orchestra as mass collaboration
Opera of the Future 