NPR’s popular weekly program, Science Friday, this week put a spotlight on Death and the Powers. Composer Tod Machover talks about his desire to use technology to amplify rather than diminish the live human presence in musical performance. You can listen to the podcast here (click on the audio player in the upper left-hand corner). …
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Tom Ashbrook, host of the radio talk show “On Point”, conducted a terrific interview today with Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover and director Diane Paulus. The conversation delved into whether today’s technology has transformed the age-old human desire to conquer death into a quest that seems plausible and possibly even attainable in the …
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There’s an excellent article, “A thoroughly modern opera: Robots enter a new frontier,” just out by writer Gregory Lamb in the Christian Science Monitor. Through his interviews with the creative team, Lamb helps to explicate the many layers of meaning in the technological wizardry of Death and the Powers. Lamb writes, “all this technology, some …
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The Chicago Opera Theater, which is presenting performances of Death and the Powers in April at Chicago’s Harris Theater, has organized two panel discussions this week in Chicago with the opera’s composer Tod Machover. Here’s the scoop: Wednesday, March 2, 2011 4:00 p.m. ITW Classroom, Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center 2133 Sheridan Road, Evanston …
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Windscreen by Meejin Yoon Excellent videos have now been posted from the FAST Music|Machines event covering 50 years of music and technology at M.I.T. All of the videos from this landmark conference are available at MIT Tech TV. Some highlights: FAST Music | MACHINES: Music, Mind and Meaning – Marvin Minsky with Teresa Marrin, Michael …
Variety, the venerable entertainment trade mag (Variety is in/famous for coining zippy industry lingo), has a story today about composer Tod Machover’s hyperinstruments. In Smart instruments: Musician’s tools play along with you, reporter David S. Cohen writes: “Ever since the invention of electric amplification, there’s been tension in the music world — a perpetual stare-down …
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Tod Machover was interviewed today on NPR’s Morning Edition. Tod speaks with host Bob Oakes about Music|Machines, an all-day event that will be held tomorrow (February 5, 2011) at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. The event features lectures and discussions by such electronic music pioneers and thinkers as Max Mathews, Barry Vercoe, Marvin Minsky, Joe Paradiso, …
Here is question 5 from New Vilna Review Editor Daniel Levenson’s recent interview with composer Tod Machover: NVR: You are currently the Head of the Media Lab’s Hyperinstruments/Opera of the Future group – can you tell us a little about how you became involved with the Media Lab and what role you see the Hyperinstruments/Opera …
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By Tod Machover I know Milton Babbitt hadn’t been feeling well, but he was one of those people you think will never die. Unlike Elliott Carter, who always seemed much younger than he was, Babbitt always seemed older…deep voice, wrinkled, small and intense, ancient in middle age. I got to know Milton well over the …
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Opera of the Future 