Look Who it Was Random video

CHM Revolutionaries: Transforming Music- From Guitar Hero to Robotic Opera & Beyond

768 views · Published 18 March 2013 · 53:20 · Indexed 10 November 2026

Channel: Computer History Museum · 2013 · Science & Technology

Watch on YouTube

This is an episode of REVOLUTIONARIES, a co-production of the Computer History Museum and KQED television, with major sponsorship by Intel. Recorded: June 27, 2012. Broadcast date: February 25, 2012.

"Music exerts its power when we are actively engaged, not when we listen subliminally. For this reason, I have been working with my group at the MIT Media Lab to create musical tools -- often with specially designed technologies -- that enable everyone to participate directly in music-making regardless of background."
Tod Machover


"Tod Machover is the only person I am aware of who contributes on a world-class level to both the technology of music creation and to music itself. Even within these two distinct areas, his contributions are remarkably diverse, and of exquisite quality."
Ray Kurzweil

Tod Machover is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music & Media at the MIT Media Lab, where he directs the Opera of the Future Group. An influential composer, he has been praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries; his music has been performed and commissioned by some of the world's most important performers and ensembles. He has also created the technologies behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Machover's opera Death and the Powers premiered in Monte-Carlo in the fall 2010. The project was developed by a creative team of international artists, designers, writers and theatrical luminaries, as well as by an interdisciplinary team of Media Lab graduate and undergraduate students. Powers features a robotic, animatronic stage -- the first of its kind -- that gradually "comes alive" as the opera's main character.

The Museum's John Hollar moderated a fascinating conversation with Tod - the son of a noted piano teacher and a computer graphics pioneer - who is using technology to revolutionize music.

Watch the full lecture at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFKzBvInaCY

More from this channel