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!

Try it now!

Welcome to A Toronto Symphony – and welcome back to all of you who have been collaborating with us since we launched the project in mid-June. Starting then, we have been asking, “What does Toronto sound like?”, and you have sent us amazing sounds, harmonies and melodies that represent the city to you. We have also engaged in various activities to shape these sounds together to create a symphony for, by, and about Toronto, for premiere by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on March 9, 2013.

Now we are entering the home stretch of completing A Toronto Symphony.  Very exciting indeed, and also a moment when I really need your help. The  TSO and I have just launched a brand new web app – called Media Scores, now available on toronto.media.mit.edu/scores – that will make it easy for you to collaborate in the final stages (now through early January) of shaping the composition. It would be wonderful if you’d give it a try and also pass the word along to family and friends.

Media Scores – designed especially for this project by our team at the MIT Media Lab – will allow you to help complete the Finale section (“Toronto Dances”) of the piece, contribute to the accompaniment “texture” of the work’s virtuosic “City Soaring” movement, and experiment with other sections of the composition to build your own unique blend and personalized musical narrative.

Anyone can participate with most flash-enabled web browsers, using Media Score’s intuitive and fun-to-use interface. No previous skill required, just an open mind, a sense of play, and inquisitive ears. Shape what Toronto sounds like today and visit toronto.media.mit.edu/scores. This piece is shaping up to be even more exciting and surprising than I expected, and your participation over the coming month will truly make it “sing.”

Look forward to “hearing” you soon! So let’s get started…..

Tod

Tod Machover, Composer/Collaborator – A Toronto Symphony

Read our first blog post and learn more about A Toronto Symphony here.

Find news stories and press coverage of A Toronto Symphony here.

As Tod and the group discuss the direction of the Toronto project, a question of focus arises on how to encourage user input and creation. With the last month of the year fast approaching, the Toronto group plans to launch a system for members of the Toronto community to take an active role in music design, a system to explore the ways we can incorporate all the forms of music and sound generated over the past months in Toronto. This challenge has proved to be a landmark hurdle in this process because the Toronto group’s vision relies on an unprecedented degree of subject involvement and experimentation. We can’t wait to reveal the games and projects we’re creating for you early this December. Your interest and your imaginations will become the building blocks of a beautiful symphony.

Multimedia developer and blogger Shawn Caza has put together a wide-ranging series of podcasts over the last year with mix-tapes of specially chosen Toronto indie music representing various aspects of life in the city. There’s a whole lot of interesting music there. Tell us which tracks pop out as an evocative “sound of Toronto”.

Listen here -> Toronto Sounds Good: A Local Music Anthology

We’ve been collecting your Toronto sound suggestions over the past weeks, and we’re pleased to announce that the submissions are rolling in!  Many of you may still be wondering which sounds are right for the project, but remember that any sound is welcome and encouraged.  Thanks to Jorge Ayala from  Soundstreams and his personal collection of Toronto sounds, we’ve compiled a wide range of examples on our Soundcloud account for you to listen to and take inspiration from. Take a listen, post comments, and then submit your own–the project can’t move forward without your help!

Here’s one that jumped out at us, sounds from Chinatown in Toronto.

Here’s the video of the formal launch of our project at the 2012 ideacity conference, capped by a terrific performance by Toronto Symphony Orchestra musicians of music that we created together.