Excerpt video from the 2013 performance of A Toronto Symphony performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and featuring the CN Tower light show triggered by the performance itself!
Media coverage of “A Toronto Symphony”
- BBC News – Tod Machover: composer’s social media symphony for Toronto (VIDEO)
- CBC – A Toronto Symphony (AUDIO)
- NPR – Scott Simon – Sounds Of Toronto’s Streets Liven Symphony (AUDIO)
- Global News – Full Story – An Urban Symphony (VIDEO)
- The Guardian – Tod Machover: how to crowdsource a symphony
- Toronto Life – The Argument: Musical visionary Tod Machover crowd-sourced a symphony for Toronto—now other cities want one too
- International Arts Manager – Electric dreams: Composer and inventor Tod Machover on music and participatory practice
- LOFT – A Toronto Symphony: Tod Machover’s participatory orchestral opera
- Symphony – Going Public (on crowdsourced symphonies) Spring 2013 issue
- Discovery Channel – Daily Planet features “A Toronto Symphony” (VIDEO, starting at 3:00)
- Global News – The Crowd Sourced Symphony: An Aural Tribute to Toronto
- Musical Toronto – News flash: CN Tower to make Toronto Symphony Orchestra début on Saturday night
- Toronto NOW – Tod Machover: What does Toronto sound like anyway?
- Toronto Star – Toronto gets the symphony treatment
- Canadian Jewish News – New symphony features the sounds of Toronto
- Musical Toronto – A Toronto Symphony composer Tod Machover keeps adding interaction weeks before premiere
- Boston Globe – Sounds of a city: A new template for collaboration in Toronto
- Toronto Life – Found Sounds
- Musical Toronto – Toronto school children become engaged composers in Toronto Symphony experiment
- Smart Planet – Q&A: Tod Machover, composer and inventor
- CBC Music – Tod Machover’s music app lets you be part of A Toronto Symphony
- Wired UK – Watch Tod Machover’s full Wired 2012 talk about his Toronto symphony
- PBS MediaShift – How Tod Machover and the City of Toronto Are Creating a Symphony
- The Guardian – The orchestra as mass collaboration
- CBC – Help Tod Machover compose A Toronto Symphony
- CBC Metro Morning – Toronto’s Sound
- Torontoist – Tod Machover Crowdsources a Symphony
- Toronto Life – Guitar Hero brain Tod Machover calls on Torontonians to help compose a musical portrait of the city
- Toronto Standard – What Does Toronto Sound Like?
- Toronto Star – Composer Tod Machover invites Torontonians to create music for the TSO
- Toronto Globe and Mail – TSO to perform a Toronto-made symphony next year
- Toronto Star – Toronto to get its own symphony at the TSO
The World Premiere
The BBC News captures the spirit of “A Toronto Symphony”. Watch below:
New image of “A Toronto Symphony”
CN Tower lighting pays tribute to World Première of Tod Machover’s A Toronto Symphony
Check out this press release from the CN Tower!!
March 9, 2013, approx. 9pm
March 7, 2013 (Toronto, ON) Toronto residents and all those within sight of the CN Tower are invited to watch a unique CN Tower light show synchronized to the world première of A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City – the first symphony created for, by and about Torontonians.
Tune in to TSO.CA for a live webcast where you will hear a live audio feed of the concert as well as see visuals, which will include graphics, video, and photos illustrating both the piece and the process of its creation, alongside a live video feed of the CN Tower’s light show. The complete concert is performed live at Roy Thomson Hall on March 9, 2013 beginning 8pm, and the webcast and CN Tower lighting will be live with the A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City première at approximately 9pm. Continue reading
Peter Oundjian on “A Toronto Symphony”
Countdown to the premiere!
Over the past year, I invited you – the citizens of Toronto – to collaborate with me to compose a new symphony which will be premiered by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on March 9, 2013, at the New Creations Festival, just two weeks from today!
I wanted to share some recent stories in the press that nicely capture what this whole journey has been about. I thought the following articles were particularly well done. Enjoy!
- Boston Globe – Sounds of a city: A new template for collaboration in Toronto
- Toronto Life – Found Sounds
- Musical Toronto – Toronto school children become engaged composers in Toronto Symphony experiment
- International Arts Manager magazine: Electric dreams: Composer and inventor Tod Machover on music and participatory practice
I look forward to meeting you at the premiere!
– Tod
Workshop with Toronto Kids (Video)
Check out this video posted by the Toronto Symphony about Tod Machover’s workshop with Toronto city school children. We’re blown away by how the kids speak about their composing concepts.
Faces of “A Toronto Symphony”
Image
Partial portrait gallery of Torontonians who recorded short stories and comments on Tuesday at the Regent’s Park School of Music, so that their voices can be in heard – literally – in A TORONTO SYMPHONY. I’ll be combining voices and melodies tomorrow; what fun! Come hear it all in Toronto on March 9th (http://tinyurl.com/TodTorontoNC).
– Tod
Launch #3 – The City Soaring app!
To start off the New Year as musically as possible, we want to share another brand new music app with you. It’s a variant of Media Scores that we introduced last month, and it will allow you to subtly shape the texture, complexity and feel of the “City Soaring” melody from A Toronto Symphony. Designed by MIT Media Lab PhD student Peter Torpey, “City Soaring” has a pretty unusual interface that literally lets you paint the quality of a melody. Grab one of the four “brush” icons in the top right-hand corner of the app window – weight, complexity, texture and intensity – and paint over the line with it. You’ll immediately see the change in color and texture and will hear the changes when you play back the melody from the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. Use the shift key with the same brushes and you can reduce that same quality. You’ll also notice a set of four curves in the lower half of the screen. Changing the shape of each curve is the same as painting with that quality directly on the line, although the feel is very different: the curves are good for big, overall changes; painting with brushes is better for very delicate and precise changes. Try them both. Continue reading