Philadelphia Voices is the sixth and largest-scale installment of Tod Machover’s acclaimed City Symphonies. Through specially-designed mobile technologies developed by Machover and his Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, Machover has given residents of Philadelphia the opportunity to contribute their own samplings of cityscapes, vocalizations, and texts, reviewed and compiled by Machover and his team, uniting the richly diverse communities of Philadelphia through sound. The result is a celebration of the birthplace of American democracy written for, and with, the Philadelphians who know it best.
Philadelphia Voices premiered on April 5, 2018 (with two subsequent performances on April 6th and 7th) with The Philadelphia Orchestra, led by its music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with a troupe of voices – Westminster Symphonic Choir, Keystone State Boys Choir and Pennsylvania Girlchoir, Sister Cities Girlchoir – representing Philadelphia-area choruses. The final performance of Philadelphia Voices took place in New York at Carnegie Hall on April 10, 2018, marking the first presentation of a City Symphony given outside the city for which it was written.
Visit the Philadelphia Voices website.