New Harmony Line
Thank you to Kickstarter for giving New Harmony Line this designation “which is our way of highlighting brilliant examples of creativity”! For more information on the Kickstarter Campaign that Executive Director June Kinoshita launched October 18th, visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hypescore/hyperscore-a-new-way-to-compose-music
New Harmony Line is a #ProjectWeLove
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In 2015, Tod Machover and the M.I.T. Media Lab Opera of the Future team went to Lucerne, Switzerland, to develop a symphonic portrait of the historic city. “A Symphony for Lucerne” was premiered by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in September, 2015. In this video, Machover is coaching students at a school who are composing original pieces using Hyperscore. The students worked collaboratively with each other and created a variety of wonderful pieces that expressed their energy, feelings about their city, and sense of humor.
We just discovered that the terrific documentary, “Urban Symphony,” which follows the development of A Toronto Symphony, is available to watch on YouTube. This was the very first of Tod Machover’s City Symphony projects and we get to see how the composer and his team at the M.I.T. Media Lab collected sounds of the city and collaborated with school children, varied communities in Toronto, and the musicians of the Toronto Symphony to create this kaleidoscopic sonic portrait of the city.
New Harmony Line will be piloting the Beta Model of the Web-based version of Hyperscore in the Fall of 2021 with music, technology and special education teachers, a Girl’s Choir leader and her directors, two Strings teachers, a 6th-grade teacher who has her students write musical accompaniments to their poems and a speech pathologist. Director of Technology, Peter Torpey, has updated the workspace, added new tools and features and made Hyperscore an even more user-friendly interface for anyone with access to the internet who wants to create music! Modules for using Hyperscore and teaching the Elements of Music (Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics, Form and Tone Color) have been designed for use by the Pilot Participants. Contact Director of Education, Cecilia (Cece) Roudabush, for training, questions or pilot support:
cecilia.roudabush@newharmonyline.org
Hyperscore has been used by children around the world to compose original pieces. Their compositions have been performed by musicians, from rock bands to major orchestras. Check out this collection of some of our “greatest hits,” each one a wonderful expression of each child’s spirit. We can’t wait to release the new version of Hyperscore for the Web!
We have exciting updates about the future of New Harmony Line and Hyperscore. Until now, Hyperscore has been compatible only with the Windows operating system. Over the past year, we have been hard at work developing a platform-independent web-based application. Our new version of Hyperscore is on its way and we can’t wait to share it with you soon.
This summer, we will be holding training sessions for teachers who would like to learn about using Hyperscore for the Web in their classrooms. If you are interested in signing up, please contact us.
If you would like to support our mission to put this powerful music composition technology into the hands of school kids, please consider making a tax-deductible donation. Hyperscore for the Web will also be available to the general public, with sales revenue going to support our educational mission.
We are grateful for the enduring engagement from educators, youth groups, orchestras, and universities, and cannot wait to bring more people together. We are excited to expand our community of people who enjoy composing, want to share their creations, and connect over a love of music.
Thank you for joining us.
– June Kinoshita, Executive Director
A Toronto Symphony is the first of composer Tod Machover’s City Symphonies. It was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, who premiered the piece in March 2013. With this project, Machover – who is Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music & Media at the MIT Media Lab – “rethought the symphony as a community event” (Musical America), a portrait of a place created for and by the people who live there.
As Machover described when he launched the project publicly in 2012, the goal was to create a sonic portrait of Toronto by “listening” to the city in order to discover its special features, by inviting all Torontonians to collect and submit their favorite sounds of the city and also to create original musical compositions using the Media Lab’s Hyperscore software, and then to engage in online and in-person workshops and activities to help shape the composition itself. The result produced a model which Machover and his team have brought to cities around the world. The MIT Symphony Orchestra (MITSO), led by Evan Ziporyn, programmed A Toronto Symphony for a concert that was to have taken place on March 13, 2020.
For this occasion, Machover revised the composition and also invited the student players of MITSO to collaborate with him to create a new section of the piece, now called “MIT Interprets Toronto”, a new twist on the City Symphony model. Another surprise was in store for the project when it was announced that MIT had to shut down – and students needed to leave campus – on March 13th, the very day of the concert, which needed – of course – to be cancelled. However, the MITSO players voted to come in for what would have been the dress rehearsal on the evening of March 12th, to play together for one last time before dispersing, and to record the music for the concert.
This video is of that March 12th recording, filmed by Peter Torpey, Paula Aguilera and Jonathan Williams. Torpey – who created the original visuals for the Toronto premiere – combined live footage of MITSO with collected visuals from Toronto, and added evocative new material as well. The video of Toronto’s CN Tower in the Toronto Dances finale is live footage from the 2013 premiere, when Machover, Torpey and team synchronized the tower’s LED lighting to the orchestral performance which was broadcast by the CBC.
Of this video performance, Tod Machover says: “Although we were not able to give the public performance of A Toronto Symphony as planned, it is especially meaningful to have this documentation of the piece that represents months of devoted work by MITSO and Evan Ziporyn. I am delighted that these young musicians were able to perform this difficult music so well. I’m also pleased that the piece ’transposed’ smoothly from Toronto to Cambridge (complete with a new section), and that orchestral music, electronics, “found” sounds, and multilayered visuals are combined just as I originally imagined them.”
This city symphony was commissioned for the Perth International Arts Festival 2014 and premiered on March 1, 2014, by the Western Australia Symphony orchestra under the baton of Carolyn Kuan.
In our blog post, Tod Machover writes: “As part of our Symphony for Perth project, we have invited young people from throughout Greater Perth, in Western Australia, to create original compositions using our Hyperscore software, expressing some aspect of life – and sound – in Perth. Students from elementary through high school, and from the CBD to Narrogin, worked on their pieces from October through mid-December (brought together by Jemma Gurney, the amazing Education Coordinator at the Perth Festival). I was lucky enough to visit eight different schools when I was in Perth this fall, and got to hear all this music as it was developing. Great experience! Final compositions were sent to me a couple of weeks ago, and I have been listening to them ever since to decide how to incorporate as many of these brilliant, vivid musical visions as possible into the final Symphony.
Reporter Andrea Shea delves into the creation of Tod Machover’s newest symphonic work, “Philadelphia Voices.”
From the famous Mummers’ New Year’s Day Parade to the sizzling of celebrated cheesesteaks, acclaimed U.S composer and inventor Tod Machover has been collecting sounds for his latest piece ‘Philadelphia Voices,’ a composition inspired by the heritage, sights and sounds of Philadelphia, the city known as the birthplace of American democracy.
Then in his barn studio, next to his Boston home, he manipulates these hours and hours of recording, crafting them into the music and soundscape for the piece. We also have behind the scenes access as the composition receives its premiere performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and local choirs.
Listen HERE.
“The expressions on the children’s faces were so moving, I will remember the day for the rest of my life. The whole orchestra and I unanimously agree that [Toy Symphony] is one of the most important things we have ever done, and that we will now commit more and more of our time, energy and budget to forwarding the agenda of introducing music to the next generations.” – Kent Nagano, conductor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
On February 24, 2002, Toy Symphony received a highly successful European preview with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin under Conductor Kent Nagano with guest Hyperviolin soloist Cora Venus Lunny. Scores of children throughout Berlin participated in school events and Toy Symphony workshops – excelling as performers and composers, and the sold out Open House and Concert created great buzz in Berlin through extensive print, radio, and television coverage both before and afterwards. An exciting pre-launch for the project.
