I just wanted to apprise you of a great opportunity to meet with Tod Machover of the MIT Media Lab. He will be at Hancher doing a residency with the Ying quartet, and he has agreed to give a presentation/discussion for interested intermedia and music students next Friday, March 28 at 2:30. At present this is scheduled to be in ABW 110, but depending upon the body count this may need to change.
Tod is an extremely innovative musician/composer/inventor who has pushed the boundaries of musical performance to include computers, robotics, and the internet. He is well known for developing new musical interfaces (hyperinstruments) such as the sensor chair, the gesture wall, and the Chandelier pictured above. I have included an abbreviated bio below. Please let me know (mneucollins@gmail.com) if you are planning to be there so I know if there will be enough space, and so that I can let you know of any venue change. It should be way interesting.
http://www.media.mit.edu/hyperins/
http://web.media.mit.edu/~tod/
===Tod Machover Bio===
Tod Machover – called "America's Most Wired Composer" by The Los Angeles Times – is widely recognized as one of the most significant and innovative composers of his generation, and is also celebrated for inventing new technology for music, including Hyperinstruments which he launched in 1986.
Tod Machover's music has been noted for breaking traditional artistic and cultural boundaries, offering a unique and innovative synthesis of acoustic and electronic sound, of symphony orchestras and interactive computers, and of operatic arias and rock songs.
In addition, Machover has created numerous large-scale music installations for the general public, including the building-size underground art experience Meteorite (2000-2005) in Essen, Germany, a collaboration with media entrepreneur Andre Heller. He is currently working on two new operas: Death and the Powers, a "robotic" opera with an original libretto by U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky, and Skellig, based on the award-winning novel by David Almond.
Tod Machover has invented many new technologies for music, most notably his Hyperinstruments that use smart computers to augment musical expression and creativity. He has designed these hyperinstruments for some of the world's greatest musicians, from Yo-Yo Ma to Prince, as well as for the general public and for children, as in his Toy Symphony project (www.toysymphony.net) – called "a vast, celebratory ode to the joy of music and its power to bring young and old together, diversity into unity (Boston Globe)" – which has been touring worldwide since 2002. Machover's Hyperinstrument research has long been supported by major companies such as Yamaha, and several of his Music Toys have recently been made commercially available by Fisher-Price and others. In addition, his music composition software Hyperscore – originally developed for children in the context of Toy Symphony – is fast gaining worldwide recognition as a popular creative tool for people of all ages and backgrounds. In awarding Machover the first Kurzweil Prize in Music and Technology in 2003, celebrated inventor and entrepreneur Raymond Kurzweil wrote: "Tod Machover is the only person I am aware of who contributes on a world-class level to both the technology of music creation and to music itself. Even within these two distinct areas, his contributions are remarkably diverse, and of exquisite quality."
