The Boston Globe's review of Death and the Powers should generate some conversation! Critic Jeremy Eichler offered high praise for most aspects of the production: "Much of Machover’s music, his soaring vocal writing, and especially some of his sculpted electronic soundscapes, are highly imaginative and quite compelling. Robert Pinsky’s libretto is often deft, and the …
TEDx Video of Spheres and Splinters
Bowers & Wilkins put up this post that gives you a chance to hear some of the music from Tod Machover's most recent work, "Spheres and Splinters", debuted in Aldeburgh and London last November. The video is a tad confusing because it mixes in footage from other performers and composers at TEDx Aldeburgh, but it …
Opening Weekend in Boston
What an incredible weekend! Death and the Powers opened on Friday night at the Cutler Majestic Theater in the epicenter of Boston's theater district. The air was electric with anticipation. The audience was studded with an only-in-Boston constellation of artists, intellectuals and übergeeks. Spotted in the crowd were M.I.T. President Susan Hockfield, Harvard Provost Steven …
Meet the Digital Composer: Tod Machover
Whether he’s creating genre-breaking compositions for the concert hall, “robotic” operas for worldwide stages, software that allows anyone to compose original music, or musical activities that can diagnose illness and restore health, Tod Machover’s unique vision is shaping the future of music. Join us as Tod discusses his new opera "Death and the Powers" and …
BBC World Service chats with Tod Machover
You can count on the BBC to produce great material, and this interview with Death and the Powers composer Tod Machover is no exception! The interviewer asks great questions. Are the operabots instruments or are they performers? How much is the pursuit of immortality a motivation for the composer? Is it about living forever through …
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Death and the Powers, the animation!
Those fun-loving folks at the Chicago Opera Theater think it's not enough to upload oneself into The System. For a full digital reincarnation these days, you need to get animated. (Just ask Robert Pinsky, who has attained his animated apotheosis on The Simpsons.) So here it is, the Powers family drama, as told by animated …
Boston Globe spotlights Operabots
Here's a charming article in the Boston Globe that focuses on the creative and technological efforts that went into the "operabots" in Death and the Powers. The article reveals how director Diane Paulus and choreographer Karole Armitage latched on to some early technical quirks and glitches and used them to imbue the operabots with dramatic …
Nice shout out on Stuff at Night!
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“Guitar Hero Goes to the Opera” – The Atlantic
"The story is as old as humanity itself. A man—in this case a successful businessman—grapples with his own mortality and wants desperately to leave a legacy after he dies. But this story has never been told as composer Tod Machover tells it." So begins this excellent article about Death and the Powers, just out in …
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Tod Machover and Diane Paulus at “On Point”
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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Opera of the Future 