Researchers want to know what's music to your ears
Is one man's Mozart another man's migraine? It might be, if culture plays the dominant role in music perception, as has been alleged by many 20th century composers. Thus far, such matters have been the...
View ArticleSenegal trip adds rhythm to Rambax
For 11 members of MIT's African drumming ensemble, "Rambax," the West African nation of Senegal was more than a vacation destination. This past spring, the MIT student musicians spent three weeks...
View ArticleJunior soloist strings together violin, science; to perform Oct. 21
At age 2, when most kids are learning how to speak and walk, Serenus Hua started playing the violin. An MIT junior now, the 19-year-old has worked his way up in the classical music world, winning...
View ArticleMIT concert to honor Schuller on Dec. 2
To commemorate the 80th birthday of Gunther Schuller, world-renowned composer, conductor and advocate of jazz and classical music, the MIT Wind Ensemble will perform music he composed and edited in a...
View ArticleMIT Symphony Orchestra plans Russian celebration Dec. 9
Alexey Shabalin, assistant conductor of the MIT Symphony Orchestra (MITSO), will make his debut conducting the ensemble in a night of all-Russian music inspired by the Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin...
View Article'Note'-worthy contest seeks new ringtones
Why have a cell phone that merely rings, beeps or squawks when you can create your own ringtone and compete for prizes while doing so?Professor Tod Machover of the Media Lab is creating his own buzz...
View ArticleMIT pianist to perform at Jordan Hall Jan. 14
Senior lecturer and pianist David Deveau will perform in New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall as part of the Boston Bank of America Celebrity Series on Saturday, Jan. 14, at 8 p.m.To celebrate the...
View ArticleGet ready for 'Invasion of Technology'
It'll be a jamming night at the Museum of Science as humans, computers and robots join forces to present a musical hybrid of Western and traditional Balinese music. "Music and the Invasion of...
View ArticleJazz orchestra to celebrate Big Dig Feb. 8
Music and theater arts lecturer Mark Harvey and his Aardvark Jazz Orchestra will celebrate the scheduled completion of the Big Dig with the premiere of Harvey's "Dig, Dug, Done," on Wednesday, Feb. 8...
View ArticleConcert features hands-off music
Forget the roses and violins. In a special noontime concert on Valentine's Day called "Waves of Pleasure," Assistant Professor Brian Robison will wave his hands over a theremin to create other-worldly...
View ArticleRing masters
The winners in the MIT Hyperscore Ringtone Competition, held by Harmony Line Inc., were announced at a gala ceremony on Friday, Jan. 27, in Room 10-250. The celebration included a DJmix of finalist...
View ArticleMemorial concert to honor Edward Cohen
Edward Cohen (1940-2002), a classically trained musician inspired by jazz and devoted to new music, was greatly respected and loved as a colleague and teacher at MIT.When he passed away after teaching...
View ArticleHarbison's 'Milosz Songs' to premiere in New York
Institute Professor John Harbison has adapted texts by Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) for the New York Philharmonic, which will perform the song cycle, "Milosz Songs for...
View ArticleN.E. Philharmonic to premiere Peter Child choral work March 4
MIT composer Peter Child may have been born in England, but these days he's steeped in "Americana.""Americana" is the title of a program to be presented by the New England Philharmonic, where Child is...
View ArticleHarris gets grant for Handel work
Ellen T. Harris, the Class of 1949 Professor of Music, has been awarded a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to broaden her research on "Messiah" composer George Frideric...
View ArticleOrchestra leader to bid farewell at concert May 17
Dante Anzolini, music director of the MIT Symphony Orchestra (MITSO) since 1998, will conduct his farewell concert tonight, leading the symphony in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 7.The 8 p.m....
View ArticleGrad student's Hyperbow makes music to measure
A Ph.D. candidate in the Hyperinstruments Group of the MIT Media Lab has developed a new electronic sensing system to measure minute changes in the position, acceleration and strain of a violin bow.The...
View ArticleR.D. Lewis Music Library turns 10
The newly renovated Rosalind Denny Lewis Music Library opened its doors 10 years ago. Thanks to the generosity of Cherry Emerson (S.M. 1941) and other donors, the library added a mezzanine, new...
View ArticleMakan's '2' marks the moment when music and computing became one
"Almost every composer in my generation uses a computer," says Keeril Makan, who, like many of his peer group, seeks ways to incorporate digital media and cutting-edge technology into his music. Makan,...
View ArticleMedia Lab plans 'sonic bath' for Lewis Music Library
The Lewis Music Library will be transformed into what Tod Machover, professor of media arts and sciences, calls a "sonic bath" next week as graduate students from the Media Laboratory join him in a...
View ArticleJapanese hip-hop: from 50 Cent to mirror balls and world peace
Six months of hanging out in smoky, grungy "genbas," or Japanese hip-hop clubs, gave cultural anthropologist Ian Condry insight into how American rap music and attitudes were being transformed by the...
View ArticleICA presents Machover work
MIT Media Lab composer Tod Machover, known for his innovativeness as a musician and as a creator of new technology for musical instruments, will present an evening performance of work commissioned for...
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Alum 'zaps' Museum of Science April 27
Composer Christine Southworth (S.B. 2002) rehearses "Zap!," a composition in which the Van de Graaff generator provides static and flashing lights for her musical composition with flutes, guitar,...
View ArticleMIT's Makan wins Rome Prize
MIT professor Keeril Makan, a musician and composer acclaimed for his technique of layering recorded and live sounds, has been awarded the prestigious Luciano Berio Rome Prize for musical composition...
View Article'Chameleon Guitar' blends old-world and high-tech
Natural wood, with its unique grain patterns, is what gives traditional acoustic instruments warm and distinctive sounds, while the power of modern electronic processing provides an unlimited degree of...
View ArticleMusic at MIT hitting all the right notes
Later this month, the MIT community will celebrate the 70th birthday of one of America's most prominent and prolific composers with a special tribute concert and symposium.That the individual in...
View Article3 Questions: Evan Ziporyn on his new opera
While a master of many forms of music, Evan Ziporyn has a particular affinity for the sounds of Bali. Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, has been involved with Balinese gamelan...
View ArticleDisembodied performance
Later this month, the Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab will premiere Death and the Powers, an opera more than 10 years in the making. Featuring life-sized singing robots and a musical...
View ArticleVideo: The Paradiso Synthesizer
Video: Lucy Lindsey and Melanie GonickIn 1973, Media Lab associate professor Joe Paradiso was an undergraduate at Tufts University, and didn’t know anyone who had built an analog music synthesizer, or...
View ArticleComposing for loudspeakers: computer music pioneer John Chowning visits MIT
In 1967, late one night in the eucalyptus-scented hills of Palo Alto, John Chowning stumbled across what would become one of the most profound developments in computer music. “It was a discovery of the...
View ArticleWhen it comes to fostering innovation, student group says 'Do it!'
MIT fosters innovation and new ideas, but what if students don’t know what to do with their ideas or don’t understand approaches or methodologies for innovation? That’s where do.it@MIT — the Do...
View ArticleFinding harmony with big data
If you ever use Spotify, or a similar music-streaming service, there’s a good chance your song recommendations, and other personalized features, are powered by novel technology developed and marketed...
View ArticleBook explores the "Musical Institute of Technology"
As many have discovered, MIT’s centers of excellence include the arts as well as the sciences and technology. One great strength of the arts at MIT is the Institute's music program, which welcomes all...
View ArticleSharing a passion for music and interactive technology
While an undergraduate at MIT, Eran Egozy never took a class that combined his passions for computers and music. That's because when he was an undergraduate in the early '90s, there weren't any. Today...
View ArticleMIT in London
“Here in London, you can feel like you’re part of history and that you’re on the cutting edge at same time — it’s a great fusion,” says Noam Angrist ’13, a Rhodes Scholar who shuttles between the U.K....
View ArticleCreating “big, beautiful things”
Garrett Parrish grew up singing and dancing as a theater kid, influenced by his older siblings, one of whom is an actor and the other a stage manager. But by the time he reached high school, Parrish...
View ArticleImagination off the charts
“Being at MIT consistently reminds me of how wonderful it is when people think beyond the surface level — up and down to other realms of things,” Jacob Collier said from the Kresge Auditorium stage on...
View ArticleArts benefactor makes lead gift for new MIT music building
Joyce Linde, a longtime supporter of MIT and the arts, has made a cornerstone gift to build a new state-of-the-art music facility at the Institute.“Our campus hums with MIT people making music, from...
View ArticleSound and technology unlock innovation at MIT
Sound is a powerfully evocative medium, capable of conjuring authentic emotions and unlocking new experiences. This fall, several cross-disciplinary projects at MIT probed the technological and...
View ArticleHacking Commencement
In the finest MIT tradition of community-driven innovation, the Commencement Committee and a core group of engineers, technologists, and artists across campus are putting minds and hands to work to...
View ArticleNavigating uncertainty through song
It was his first week on campus, and like most first-year students, Alberto Naveira felt overwhelmed. On top of the usual college fears, he felt trapped between two worlds — his familiar, small,...
View ArticleThere’s a symphony in the antibody protein the body makes to neutralize the...
The pandemic reached a new milestone this spring with the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines. MIT Professor Markus Buehler marked the occasion by writing “Protein Antibody in E Minor,” an orchestral piece...
View ArticleLife in space: Preparing for an increasingly tangible reality
As a not-so-distant future that includes space tourism and people living off-planet approaches, the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative is designing and researching the activities humans will...
View ArticleHarmonix keeps innovating, with lasting impact
Every holiday season, a popular new video game causes a disproportionate amount of hype, anticipation, and last-minute shopping. But few of those games offer an entirely new way to play. Even fewer...
View ArticleMachine learning and the arts: A creative continuum
Sketch a doodle of a drum or a saxophone to conjure a multi-instrumental composition. Look into a webcam, speak, and watch your mouth go bouncing across the screen — the input for a series of...
View ArticlePamela Z: Singing the body electric
In the mid-1980s, artist Pamela Z was working at Tower Records on Columbus Street in San Francisco, where one of her jobs was replacing pages in the store’s Phonolog, an enormous alphabetized directory...
View ArticleKeeril Makan named associate dean of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and...
MIT Professor Keeril Makan has been named associate dean of the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), effective July 1. Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of SHASS, says Makan...
View ArticleQ&A: A high-tech take on Wagner’s “Parsifal” opera
The world-famous Bayreuth Festival in Germany, annually centered around the works of composer Richard Wagner, launched this summer on July 25 with a production that has been making headlines. Director...
View ArticleHearing Amazônia: MIT musicians in Manaus, Brazil
On Dec. 13, the MIT community came together for the premiere of “We Are The Forest,” a documentary by MIT Video Productions that tells the story of the MIT musicians who traveled to the Brazilian...
View ArticlePlay it again, Spirio
Seated at the grand piano in MIT’s Killian Hall last fall, first-year student Jacqueline Wang played through the lively opening of Mozart’s “Sonata in B-flat major, K.333.” When she’d finished, Mi-Eun...
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