During his time as a visiting artist at the Media Lab, keyboardist Jordan Rudess worked with researchers from the Responsive Environments Group to develop “jam_bot, a machine learning model designed to emulate his playing style and improvise while performing alongside him,” reports Annie Sarlin for The Boston Globe.
WBUR’s Lloyd Schwartz spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s revival of “VALIS” at MIT, staged by Prof. Jay Scheib. “The score is an inventive and often hauntingly beautiful arrangement of synthesizer, live instruments, and electronically expanded instruments,” writes Schwartz, “which Machover calls ‘hyper-instruments,’ a compelling amalgamation of minimalism, medieval, Wagner and rock.”
Gus Solomons Jr. ’61, “a leading figure in modern and postmodern dance,” has died at 84, reports Gia Kourlas for The New York Times. Solomons began dancing at age 4, but didn’t begin training until he was a first year student at MIT, where he earned a degree in architecture. “Over his long career, Mr. Solomons danced with many companies and many choreographers, including Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham,” Kourlas notes. “He broke ground as the first Black dancer to join the Cunningham company.”
Prof. Evan Ziporyn and his colleagues have created a multimedia, interactive performance that allows viewers to tour a spider’s web, reports Erin Blakemore for The Washington Post. “The group took laser-scanned images of the spider’s web, then associated different parts of the web with different sounds,” Blakemore explains. “They were inspired by the intricate, yet tough protein fibers that make up spider webs.”
Boston Globe reporter Zoë Madonna spotlights a performance by the Arneis Quartet at MIT, which included pieces by Prof. John Harbison and lecturer Elena Ruehr. Madonna writes that, “With high risks came high reward, and the Arneis Quartet offered an intense, indelible experience to the small crowd in Killian Hall.”
Boston Globe reporter Jeremy Eichler spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s new opera, “Schoenberg in Hollywood,” which looks at the life and work of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. Eichler writes that the opera is “at once an earnestly admiring tribute and an unconventional biographic fantasia.”
Prof. Tod Machover debuts his latest symphony, “Philadelphia Voices,” this week, and the AP’s Natalie Pompilio writes that it “both captures and celebrates the distinctive sounds and sizzle of Philadelphia.” The piece interweaves live music with recordings that include a “cheesesteak interlude,” birds at the Philadelphia Zoo, and children visiting the Museum of the American Revolution.
Musician Miguel Zenón, who postponed a trip to Puerto Rico with the MIT Jazz Ensemble due to Hurricane Maria, will perform two concerts in the U.S., including one at MIT, to benefit the Puerto Rico Recovery Fund. Writing for The Boston Globe, Jon Garelick notes that both shows will feature a new piece commissioned by MIT, “En Pie De Lucha,” which Zenón translates roughly as “getting back up for battle.”
Boston Globe reporter Marc Hirsh writes about a performance of David Bowie’s final album “Blackstar” at Kresge Auditorium, conducted by Prof. Evan Ziporyn. Hirsch notes that the “orchestra’s approach took advantage of the rich, jazz-infused harmonic palette of ‘Blackstar.’”
Prof. Evan Ziporyn and Visiting Artist Maya Beiser speak to Arun Rath of WGBH about their work at MIT’s Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and their performance of David Bowie’s final album. Ziporyn explains that CAST’s purpose is to “energize cross relations between those disciplines, which is something MIT has had going on basically since it was MIT.”
Prof. Evan Ziporyn speaks with Jeremy Goodwin of WBUR’s The Artery about his orchestral arrangement of “Blackstar,” David Bowie’s final album. The key to this arrangement isn’t recreating the album, it’s about “finding the feel of each of the movements and finding how are you going to get that to function with live players in large forces,” Ziporyn explains.
Prof. Eran Egozy will debut NoteStream, an app that provides real-time information about performances, at an upcoming concert at MIT, writes The Boston Globe’s Zoë Madonna. “We want people who are listening to music, especially if they’re listening for the first time, to be able to appreciate more of it as they’re listening to it,” says Egozy.
Linda Poon of CityLab writes about Prof. Tod Machover’s latest project turning the sounds of Miami and Philadelphia into symphonies, using audio and video captured by local residents. “There's an incredible kind of liveliness, a combination of restaurants and people talking with the open ocean on one side and streets on the other,” says Machover of Miami’s sounds.
Prof. Evan Ziporyn organized and conducted a tribute concert in honor of David Bowie. Boston Globe writer Matthew Guerrieri described the concert as “heartfelt, celebratory, just freewheeling enough.”
In an article for WBUR, Amelia Mason highlights the top musicians to see at the Outside the Box Festival, highlighting MIT’s Gamelan Galak Tika ensemble. Mason writes that the ensemble “infuses traditional Balinese gamelan music with experimental and modern classical sounds.”