Tod Machover
Born 1953. Has been working at the MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, USA), where he is currently Professor of Music and Media and head of the Lab's "Opera of the Future" group. He received his degrees in musical composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. From 1978-1985, he was Director of Musical Research at the IRCAM in Paris.
Machover is especially noted for inventing new technology for music, especially his Hyperinstruments that use smart computers to augment musical expression and creativity. He has designed these hyperinstruments for musicians like Yo-Yo Ma and Prince, as well as for the general public and for children, as in the Toy Symphony project, which was launched in Europe in Spring 2002, and toured the United States and Asia during the 2002/3 season.
Machover's compositions have been performed and commissioned by internationally reknown institutions, like for example the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Centre Pompidou, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), and the Tokyo String Quartet. His work has received numerous awards and prizes, including a "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres," one of France's highest cultural honors, and the first DigiGlobe Prize in Interactive Media from the German government. He has composed five operas, including the audience-interactive and partly online based Brain Opera (1996), one of the first musical projects using the Internet as a participatory instrument for website visitors. Today, it is permanently installed at Vienna's House of Music.
- Articles
- Powerful Tools for Exploring Sound. Tod Machover in Conversation with Sabine Breitsameter. May 2005. http://www.swr.de/swr2/audiohyperspace/engl_version/interview/machover.html
