Meet our team: Tod Machover

Hyperscore was invented by the Opera of the Future group of Tod Machover, the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. A Pulitzer Prize-finalist and Emmy-winning composer, Tod is creator of City Symphonies. In 2016, he was named Composer of the Year by Musical America. Called a “musical visionary” by The New York Times and “America’s most wired composer” by The Los Angeles Times, Tod is an influential composer and inventor, praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries and for developing technologies that expand music’s potential for everyone, from celebrated virtuosi to musicians of all abilities.

Hyperscore software, developed by his Media Lab team, has enabled children around the world to compose music which has been performed by chamber music ensembles like the Ying Quartet, rock bands, and major orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Tod studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions at The Juilliard School and was the first Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris. He is widely recognized for designing new technologies for music performance and creation, such as Hyperinstruments, “smart” performance systems that extend expression for virtuosi, from Yo-Yo Ma to Prince, as well as for the general public. The video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band were invented by graduates of Machover’s group at the Media Lab.