BBC News reports on “Festival City”

Last night’s world premiere of “Festival City” went off without a hitch. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra players were on fire, and the acoustics in Usher Hall were excellent. Kudos too to the Edinburgh International Festival audience for their commitment and enthusiasm to new work. Check out this BBC report from the rehearsal, including a video with interviews with Tod Machover and RSNO conductor Peter Oundjian. The entire performance was also recorded and we hope will be broadcast soon. Stay tuned…

Read and watch video here: Edinburgh’s crowdsourced symphony made with MIT apps

“Festival City” featured in New York Times

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 Powers” to “Festival City”, including a description of the Cauldron app in action. Accompanying the story is a terrific slide show of photographs by Katherine Taylor. Tod’s newest work, “Festival City”, premieres next week, on August 27th, at the Edinburgh International Festival.

Here’s the article: Duet for Composition and Software

Here’s the slide show.

Photo by Katherine Taylor
Photo by Katherine Taylor

Three weeks to go!

This guide from The Scotsman and WOW247 highlights its top 13 picks from the Edinburgh International Festival. “Festival City” gets a nice shout out…

13 stand-out shows at the Edinburgh International Festival

The RSNO perform a suite of works inspired by “film noir, big-band jazz and the movies of David Lynch”, which includes a world premiere of Tod Machover‘s Festival City – an  attempt to gather “sonic memories of Edinburgh” to help shape an orchestral work, between now and August.

Read the full article here.

BBC Scotland spotlights “Festival City” (AUDIO)

“Festival City” was featured yesterday in the inaugural episode of BBC Scotland’s new show, “The Culture Studio with Janice Forsyth.”  Janice’s interview with Tod Machover  starts at 1:34:00 and runs to the end of the show. There is also a fantastic interview with media historian David Hendy (at 1:21:00), who talks about the role of noise in human history and plays a soundscape from an imagined early 19th century Edinburgh. Plus a superb interview with Annie Lennox (at 0:04:21). Enjoy!

BBCScotlandScreencap