Just posted on Tod Machover's Facebook: Sunday morning in Rio. Got here yesterday morning; first time here. Overwhelmed, beyond words. Sensuality and complexity, beauty and squalor, sophistication and simplicity...all not just side by side but interwoven, and absolutely enwrapped, as the sea sweeps across the land, the hills are everywhere, and favelas climb up and tumble …
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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Wired UK on Tod Machover’s Music Projects
The November issue of Wired UK is devoted to the M.I.T. Media Lab. Fun to see so many friends and colleagues profiled in it! The article on Tod Machover provides a grand sweep of his career, from Tod's first encounter with the 4X synthesizer at IRCAM to his current work on "A Toronto Symphony" and …
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Inside the technology for “Death and the Powers”
M.I.T. Media Lab graduate student Peter Torpey, a key collaborator in Tod Machover's opera "Death and the Powers," has published an in-depth paper detailing the opera's groundbreaking technology in the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. It's a must-read for anyone interested in interactive performance technology for live theater and music. You can …
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Notes from Ithaca
A couple of weeks ago, Tod gave a keynote at the "Music: Cognition, Technology Society" conference at Cornell University. Tyran Grillo just posted this thorough summary at Sequenza 21, a blog devoted to contemporary classical music. He write: "Music: Cognition, Technology, Society set a formidable intellectual task before participants of the selfsame conference at semester’s end on the quieting …
Opera of the Future at Sleep No More NYC
At last the story can be told! For the past several months, the Opera of the Future team has been cranking away on a top-secret project to create an enhanced version of Sleep No More, the runaway hit theater experience currently playing in New York City. Last week, they beta tested the system with live …
Prelude to Toronto – Crowdsourced piano improv
Last week's experiment at the MIT Media Lab tested out a new system to allow the listening public to express musical preferences to a pianist who responded in real time. Tae Kim's tour de force of improvisation drew a highly engaged crowd both at the Media Lab and online, as well as some media attention. …
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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 …
From the U.S. to Armenia, Kids Build a Musical Bridge
From PRWeb Cambridge, MA and Yerevan, Armenia. The opulent Armenian Opera Theater in the heart of Armenia’s capital Yerevan will reverberate with some truly fresh sounds on the evening of February 25, 2012, as two of Armenia’s elite musical ensembles dig into new pieces composed entirely by children from Armenia and the United States. The concert, “A-to-A: …
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Music connects teens with Alzheimer patients
Here's a cool article and video from Adam Boulanger's visit last week to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland, PA. Twenty-one students from the school are being trained to teach Alzheimer's patients to use a music composition tool. They are part of a collaborative research study with the M.I.T. Media Lab, the Cleveland Clinic and …
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Opera of the Future 