Tod Machover has recently been called "America's most wired composer" by the Los Angeles Times. Since 1985, he has worked at the MIT Media Lab where he is currently Professor of Music and Media and head of the Lab's Opera of the Future group. He is also a Founding Member of Media Lab Europe in Dublin. Machover is noted for inventing new technology for music, especially his Hyperinstruments that use smart computers to augment musical expression and creativity. He has designed these hyperinstruments musicians from Yo-Yo Ma to Prince, as well as for the general public and children, as in the Toy Symphony project, launched in Europe in Spring 2002, and will tour the United States and Asia during the 2002/3 season.

Machover received his degrees in musical composition from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. From 1978-1985, he was Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez's IRCAM institute in Paris. His work has received numerous awards and prizes, including a "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres," one of France's highest cultural honors, and the first DigiGlobe Prize in Interactive Media from the German government. He has composed five operas, including the science fiction VALIS, the audience-interactive Brain Opera. Machover is currently Composer-in-Residence with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and is working on opera projects for the Opèra de Monte-Carlo, New York City Opera and Los Angeles Opera.

Jeremy asks:
I love the beatbugs! Are they available for purchase? And will Hyperscore ever be available for Mac?

Machover's response:
WILL THERE EVER BE A MAC VERSION OF HYPERSCORE?

One of real disappointments with Hyperscore is that there is not a Mac version. I have been working on interactive music systems for twenty years or so, and almost everything we've done has been Mac-based. For Hyperscore, we decided to develop it on the PC for three reasons: first, Egon Pasztor, the grad student in my group at the MIT Media Lab who did a lot of the graphic programming, was much more familiar with the PC; second, the PC has some very powerful graphics features which made this platform attractive; and third, when we started dreaming up the project several years ago, Apple was in a real slump and - even though I'm a Mac fanatic - seemed like it might not make it as a company! Now of course, Apple is back, the Mac platform is strong again, and we wish Hyperscore ran on it. But I can't promise when it will. Since we are a university research lab, it is much easier for us to think up great new ideas (or try to!), and to produce working prototypes for others to try and use. In most cases, it is easier for us to have others - often the companies that sponsor the initial research - take these ideas and turn them into more widely distributed products. We are working with several companies now, including Fisher-Price, to make versions of Hyperscore which will be more widely available. Look for an update next Fall. In the meantime, we are exploring several other ways that we might be able to make a Mac version - and also to add several new features and improvements - over the coming months. No promises, but we'll be trying. I am dying to run Hyperscore at home, on one of our various Mac platforms, and so are my two daughters!

HOW CAN I BUY A BEATBUG?

Unfortunately, you can't buy a Beatbug right now, but we're working on that too. Over the past couple of years, we discussed with several large toy companies the idea of turning Beatbugs into a commercial product. It almost happened, but we haven't found the right situation yet. One problem with the current Beatbugs is that they work best when connected to a computer (a Mac this time, not a PC!!), and most toy companies believe that a product would be more successful if it were "unplugged" and totally self-contained. It is not simple to put all the processing power of the Beatbug - and beautiful sound synthesis and amplification - inside the bug itself. Also, it is more fun to play the Beatbug when it is connected to other bugs, since it is designed as a networked toy that can send music back and forth, and produce many other interconnected experiences. But we are working on both of these questions, and are exploring ways of distributing Beatbugs through a commercial toy company, and also of perhaps launching a small independent entity to make Beatbugs available. Contact us again this summer; with luck, we'll have some good news on this front.