The Western Australia Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Carolyn Kuan was hard at work this morning polishing up Tod Machover's brand-new "Symphony for Perth," which premieres tonight at the finale of the 2014 Perth Festival. The much-anticipated work was featured in an extensive article published in today's The Australian: The ears of an outsider, …
Check out these fun Perth sounds!
There is a fun piece in The Guardian today about Tod's upcoming symphony orchestra piece for Perth: Flies, crows and crashing waves: the sounds that define Perth: Tod Machover is creating a symphony for Perth. Or, more precisely, a symphony with Perth. Between a Desert and the Deep Blue Sea, which will premiere on March 1, …
New York Times features Opera of the Future
The M.I.T. Media Lab Opera of the Future group's work is the subject of a full-page article by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in the August 16th issue of the New York Times. It's an engagingly written piece that covers the history of Tod Machover's work in music composition and technology, from hyperinstruments to "Death and the …
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“A Toronto Symphony” makes its debut
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. …
Toronto Kids Score!
Several hundred school children in Toronto have been giving their Hyperscore programs a good workout, composing music about their city for composer Tod Machover's collaborative "A Toronto Symphony" project. Some of it may end up in the new work, to be premiered in March 2013 by the Toronto Symphony. Take a listen to some of the …
December Toronto Visit
Tod Machover visited Toronto last Friday to check in on the school kids who have been working on their musical contributions to the "A Toronto Symphony" project all fall. The visit is described in this terrific Musical Toronto post by John Terauds. Here are some cool photos and comments posted by Tod on his Facebook …
Dan Ellsey and Tod Machover featured in new film
Dan Ellsey, a young man with cerebral palsy whose life was transformed when he learned to compose music using Hyperscore, is the subject of a new documentary film, Music is My Voice. Hyperscore was developed by the Opera of the Future group at the M.I.T. Media Lab and featured in this TED Talk by Tod …
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From Our Archives: Toy Symphony in Dublin
"I can play [the Hyperviolin] and it will sound like a flute or a human voice, yet using the technique of the violin that I have learnt. The possibilities are limitless...And the kids respond to it because it is current. Their imaginations are stimulated, they're having fun, and they know they are part of something special. That excites …
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Hyperscore in Action: A-to-A Project
One of the core ideas in Hyperscore, the composing software developed by Tod Machover's team at the M.I.T. Media Lab, is that music is built from "motifs" - small melodies and rhythm patterns - which are assembled into larger musical structures. In this video, Tod coaches a groups of children in Armenia and the U.S. as …
WBUR Visionaries (Video)
WBUR (90.9FM) launched its "Visionaries" series today with a feature about Tod Machover. The program airs one more time today, at 5:50PM EST, and should be available later on as a podcast. The transcript of the story is available online, together with this new video showing some of the projects at the MIT Media Lab's …