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. …
Rehearsal Pics – “Jeux Deux”
The Toronto Symphony's New Creations Festival opens today! With Machover as guest-curator, the 2013 New Creations Festival takes a suitably technology-driven perspective, exploring the evolution of music from past to future with a selection of boundary-bending works which bring the past to the present and redefines the instruments of an orchestra. The Festival opens with the …
Instrumentation for “A Toronto Symphony”
In case you are wondering why Tod didn't emerge from his barn-studio for the past two months, he was busy orchestrating "A Toronto Symphony." In this new SoundNotion interview, Tod explains his work process, along with sundry other hot topics from the Media Lab and Opera of the Future. (The interview was recorded over Skype, and you …
This week: KQED Interviews with Tod Machover
Mark your calendars! San Francisco's public radio TV station KQED will be airing a one-hour-long interview with Tod Machover this week. Here's the scoop: Transforming Music Meet musician and inventor Tod Machover, the creator of technologies behind "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band." Computer History Museum's John Hollar speaks to the influential composer, whose work has been performed internationally, …
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Machover giving Chamber Music America Keynote
Chamber Music America's National Conference is coming to New York City this week, from January 17-20. This year's conference is packed with sessions about building audiences, exploring fresh musical territory and navigating the technologies for sustaining music. Tod Machover will be giving the opening Keynote on Friday, January 15, 10:30 AM, on "High Tech Music: …
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Smartplanet Q&A with Tod Machover
"In 50 years, and probably well before that, every piece of music will be some kind of collaboration." As the ambitious "A Toronto Symphony" project heads into its final phase, journalist Molly Petrilla checked in with composer Tod Machover for an update. In this excellent Smartplanet interview, Tod describes his motivation and vision for this unprecedented …
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 …
Wanna help write a symphony? There’s an app for that
As the Opera of the Future team heads into the final stretch of its ambitious Toronto Symphony project, it has released a brand-new web application called Media Scores. The system enables anyone to mold sections of composer Tod Machover's music like pieces of sonic clay, save their work, and share them with other users, including Machover. …
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PBS features A Toronto Symphony
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 …
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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Opera of the Future 