Tod Machover discusses his work as a musician, composer and inventor. As a designer of new technology and the inventor of Hyperinstruments, which augment musical expression using smart computers, Machover has virtually re-invented music. He has designed and built Hyperinstruments for the most diverse musical performers and situations, such as Yo-Yo-Ma, Prince, Disney's Epcot Center, and the BBC Symphony.
Tod Machover has been widely-recognized as one of the most important and innovative composers of his generation. The Los Angeles Times names him "America's Most Wired Composer," and The New York Times recently called him "brilliantly gifted." Machover is Professor of Music and Media at the MIT Media Lab, and is director of the Hyperinstruments and Opera of the Future groups there. He was the Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez's IRCAM Institute in Paris and was educated at Juilliard where he studied composition with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions.
Machover has received numerous awards and prizes for his work, including a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres from the French government and, most recently, the first Ray Kurzweil Prize for music and technology. He has composed five operas, including the science fiction VALIS (based on Philip K. Dick's novel), Resurrection, and the audience-interactive Brain Opera, now permanently installed at Vienna's House of Music. His most recent project, Toy Symphony, uses specially designed hi-tech Music Toys to introduce children to musical creativity in radically new ways, enabling them to collaborate with world-class orchestras and soloists in high visibility concerts. Machover's latest CD,
Hyperstring Trilogy, has just been released on the Oxingale label, and has already been called "a masterpiece" by the international press. He is currently working on several new operas, including one with former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, as well as composing new works for cellist Matt Haimovitz, the Ying Quartet, and the Boston Pops.
