Listen to Radio Features on
Music & The Invasion of Technology :

HERE & NOW (mp3, 10.8 MB)
High Tech Bots play Ancient Tune (here-now.org)
with Robin Young, WBUR, 1/25/06

WBUR Morning Edition (mp3, 5.1 MB)
preview by Matt Largey, WBUR, 1/25/06

A delightful meeting of man and machine
By Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
7/19/06

NORTH ADAMS -- Evan Ziporyn, a free spirit, has composed a trio for violin, clarinet, and a robot named Heliphon.

The work, ``Belle Labs," was performed Friday during one of the daily afternoon concerts presented by the Bang on a Can Music Festival at Mass MoCA, ``Banglewood." It was the kind of unexpected event one has learned to expect from the festival and from the MIT-based composer, a man who prefers not to repeat himself. READ MORE

Computerworld Schweiz
Hardware: Roboter musizieren und tanzen
09.03.2006 | 17:56 Uhr
Im Ensemble Robot spielen Musikanten aus Fleisch und Blut mit Robotern zusammen. Dabei entsteht eine faszinierende Musik.

by Jens Stark

«Ich bin der Musikant mit Taschenrechner in der Hand», trällerten die Mitglieder von Kraftwerk, liessen eine Menge elektronischer Klänge vom Stapel und gerierten sich in ihren Performances als humanoide Roboter. Ähnliches erwartet der Zuhörer, wenn er zum ersten Mal der Musik des «Ensemble Robot» lauschen möchte, und ist überrascht, wenn dann zunächst einmal Klänge des balinesischen Gamelan oder von Geige und Klarinette zu hören sind. Auch dann, wenn die eigentlichen Roboter zum Einsatz kommen, ist das Klanggebäude alles andere als elektronisch. «Die Roboter produzieren die Töne wie wir Menschen», erklärt Christine Southworth vom Ensemble Robot.

Read more

Dancing to the beat of a robot drummer
Kimberly W. Moy, The Boston Globe, 1/23/06

Shortly after she graduated from college with a minor in music, Christine Southworth found herself composing tunes no one could play.

So the MIT alumna took the next logical step: She had a friend invent a robot that could perform her polyrhythmic, Indonesian-inspired compositions.

On Wednesday at the Museum of Science, Southworth, now a student of computer music, will show off her ensemble's compositions and her latest robotic instruments -- which lie at the nexus between science and art. The relatively new Bot(i)Cello, whose $1,000 in parts include fans, strings, a wooden bowl and three windshield-wiper motors, will play alongside fellow robots, real-life Balinese gamelan players, and more-traditional instruments, such as a guitar, a violin, a bass, and a lyricon (a vintage wind instrument).

read more

MIT mashup: Robots and humans make beautiful music together

Bob Young , The Boston Herald , 1/24/06

First there was a troupe of 30 math, physics and engineering student musicians playing the traditional music of faraway Bali.

Then robots played music with humans and millions of volts of electricity. Now, from an idea that was fine-tuned in the halls and labs of MIT, the students, the robots and humans will share the stage tomorrow at the Museum of Science. “It was a natural connection,” said Evan Ziporyn, an MIT professor, clarinetist and founder of Gamelan Galak Tika, gamelan being a percussion-dominated instrumental ensemble native to parts of Indonesia.

Natural? Robots and people playing music together? For Ziporyn and Christine Southworth, co-founder and director of Ensemble Robot, composer in residence at the museum and a member of the gamelan orchestra, this show makes perfect sense.

read more

Defend Yourself:
Christine Southworth
Luke O'Neil, Weekly Dig , 1/25/06

The Museum of Science's Music and the Invasion of Technology showcase is from the future. Literally. Well, not literally. Technically, it's in the future, but soon it will be here - and thank goodness, because it sounds crazy. For this premiere performance, Christine Southworth has composed music for robots and humans to play together.

read more (pdf)

Rocking Robots Take Stage
MIT Tech Talk, 1/25/06

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 Technology," featuring premieres by Professor Evan Ziporyn and alumna Christine Southworth, will take place at the Museum of Science's Cahners Theater on Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 7 p.m.

Best-known for compositions that bridge Balinese and Western musical idioms to forge a new sound, Ziporyn has composed "Belle Labs" as a virtuosic dialogue between two humans (Todd Reynolds on violin and Ziporyn on clarinet) and a robot, pushing the musicians and the machine to their limits.

Southworth, who graduated from MIT in 2002 in mathematics with a minor in music, is co-founder of Ensemble Robot, which premiered "Zap!" -- a work for Van de Graaff generator, robots and musicians -- at the Museum of Science in February 2005. The Boston Phoenix called the work "truly electrifying."

Southworth's "Zap" and Ziporyn's "Belle Labs" both use the Heliphon robot, a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)-controlled double-helix-shaped xylophone that plays by striking metal keys with solenoids.

read more (pdf)

ZAP! is "truly electrifying!"

Will Spitz, The Boston Phoenix, "Out: Going Electric" 2/10/05

Features:

• Providence Journal pop music writer Rick Massimo's preview :
  "A High Power Show at the Museum of Science"
  
  
• Bob Young's preview from The Boston Herald/The Edge:
  "Ensemble Robot creators `Zap!' preconceived ideas of electronic music"
  
  
• MIT Tech Talk's preview & interview by Lynn Heinemann :
  "Southworth Makes Music Outside the Rules"
  ArtTalk: Christine Southworth, composer
  
  
• Electrostatic Society of America review, by Humphrey Wong

Listings & Columns:

• Editor's Pick in The Boston Phoenix 2/4/05
• Boston Globe 48 Hours to Kickoff & Go! Column 2/4/05
• MIT : "High-voltage Star-Power!" 2/4/05
  

Very special thanks to LEF Foundation
for making this performance possible.

We would also like to thank The Boston Museum of Science,
MIT, Brown University, and Andy Cavatorta.