The Collaborative City Symphony project is a recent initiative that brings creative musical participation to everyone, while encouraging collaboration between artists and amateurs, with symphony orchestras (and many other organizations) as the principal galvanizers. Developed by composer-inventor-professor Tod Machover and his team in the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, City Symphonies invite the citizens of a particular place to listen to the world around them, to discover the “music” in that place, and to work together to create a sonic portrait of that city that reveals its essential qualities and most important issues and questions to audiences locally and around the world. Going beyond crowd-sourcing, City Symphonies propose a new model of collaboration, where people of all ages and backgrounds work together to make beautiful, meaningful music that none of them–including the highest level professionals–could have made alone.
Trailers
Performances
- A Toronto Symphony (video excerpt showing visuals and CN Tower control and article)
- Festival City (audio and program book)
- Between the Desert and the Deep Blue Sea: A Symphony for Perth (audio with visuals and program book)
- A Symphony for Lucerne (video and program book)
- Symphony in D (video and program book)
Public Outreach & Workshops
- “Opening Chords with Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra”
- “Repertoire Remix” for Edinburgh
- “I Hear Lucerne” episodes
- “Hearing Detroit with American House” blog post
- “Sneak Preview + Meet a Few of Our Collaborators” blog post
Applications
- “Media Scores” for Toronto
- “Cauldron” for Edinburgh (BBC video)
- Mobile App for Detroit (iOS app and demo)
- “Constellation” for Detroit
Hyperscore
- Hyperscore Website
- Hyperscore workshop with Toronto District School Board (TDSB) students
- Hyperscore curriculum developed by TDSB music teachers
- Hyperscore pieces composed by Lucerne students
- “Hyperscore in Detroit” blog post
Comprehensive Media
- A Toronto Symphony documentary: “Urban Symphony” by 16x9
- World Economic Forum Closing Performance 2015: “A Symphony for Our Times”
Press
- Boston Globe – “Sounds of a city: A new template for collaboration in Toronto”
- LOFT – “A Toronto Symphony: Tod Machover’s participatory orchestral opera”
- The Guardian – Tod Machover: how to crowdsource a symphony”
- Limelight – Concert review: Between the Desert and the Deep Blue Sea (WASO)
- The New York Times – “Tod Machover Named Composer in Residence for Lucerne Festival”
- The New York Times – “Detroit Symphony Tackles an Adventurous Premiere”
- Additional press on A Toronto Symphony
- Additional press on Festival City
- Additional press on Between the Desert and the Deep Blue Sea
- Additional press on A Symphony for Lucerne
- Additional press on Symphony in D
Research
- Peter Torpey PhD Thesis: “Media Scores” (pages 87 and 143)
- Toronto Visual/Audio Systems Diagram