{"id":8903,"date":"2013-01-13T08:51:12","date_gmt":"2013-01-13T13:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8903"},"modified":"2013-01-13T08:51:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-13T13:51:12","slug":"a-toronto-symphony-composer-tod-machover-keeps-adding-interaction-weeks-before-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/01\/13\/a-toronto-symphony-composer-tod-machover-keeps-adding-interaction-weeks-before-premiere\/","title":{"rendered":"A Toronto Symphony composer Tod Machover keeps adding interaction weeks before premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8904\" alt=\"tod_wings\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/tod_wings-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/tod_wings-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/tod_wings.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>We are just under eight weeks from the premiere of <em>A Toronto Symphony<\/em>, which closes the Toronto Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s New Creations Festival on March 9.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The composer is Boston-based <a href=\"http:\/\/web.media.mit.edu\/~tod\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tod Machover<\/a>, who is more big-hearted Mad Professor with an iPad than lonely artist perched with pencil over big sheets of lined paper.<\/p>\n<p>Composer is, in fact, a totally wrong way to describe Machover. He is a muse or a facilitator in the very best sense, laying out the very best 21st century tools he and his graduate students at MIT&#8217;s Media Lab can come up with to make the composition a collaboration with Torontonians and anyone else interested in dabbling in the digital manipulation of sound.<\/p>\n<p>The latest addition to his crowdsourced-music toolchest is the City Soaring app, which puts paintbrush-like tools in our hands that manipulate the basic musical motifs supplied for this portion of the new work. (Note that Machover&#8217;s materials only work on recent versions of Chrome and Safari web browsers.)<\/p>\n<p>Machover is laying out all the pieces; we put them together.<\/p>\n<p>A Toronto Symphony is a great exercise in harnessing the latest digital and social media tools for something that is normally a small, esoteric part of our larger culture. It is a great way to remind anyone of any age that creativity is not the domain of uniquely gifted individuals.<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, if Machover really is the ideal facilitator, he won&#8217;t be able to do anything if we, his partners in audio manipulation, create a dog&#8217;s breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>When you mix too many colours in visual art, you get a sludgy brown. Add too many herbs, spices and vegetables to a soup and you can&#8217;t tell what you&#8217;re slurping anymore.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m looking forward to March 9. But I&#8217;m trying to figure out exactly what I&#8217;ll be reviewing &#8212; and whether I or anyone else will be able to judge <em>A Toronto Symphony<\/em> in the traditional way as a piece of music.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think?<\/p>\n<p>You can check out Machover&#8217;s full palette of contributions <a href=\"http:\/\/toronto.media.mit.edu\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. The link to the Toronto Symphony&#8217;s site for this concert is <a href=\"http:\/\/tso.ca\/Concerts-And-Tickets\/Events\/2012-2013-Season\/A-Toronto-Symphony.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are just under eight weeks from the premiere of A Toronto Symphony, which closes the Toronto Symphony Orchestra&#8217;s New Creations Festival on March 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,18,19,31,36,38,39,42,60,61,63],"tags":[855,904,2177,2249,3323,3359,3403],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/01\/tod_wings.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2jB","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8903"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}