Tod Machover: Composing Conversations

About

Composer Tod Machover is no stranger to experiment. His first composition was an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's sci-fi classic, Valis. He spends his days as a professor of music and media at MIT's Media Lab, which helped birth his latest work, Death and the Powers. Billed as a "robot pageant," this plot concerns inventor Simon Powers at the end of his life, contemplating how to extend it with the help of various computers. In fact, the characters are robots, singing us through the shenanigans of their human predecessors. Sounds cool, but like a lot of opera, more than a little confusing. Luckily, the Dallas Opera is bringing in Machover to help explain his futuristic tale as part of their ongoing Composing Conversations series.