Can music repair damaged tissue? Is it possible to hear it through another person's ears? If anyone knows, it's Tod Machover. As he prepares to create an innovative symphony for Edinburgh, Charlotte Higgins meets the music professor.

Host Scott Simon talks to MIT professor of music and media Tod Machover about his work with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He crowdsourced street sounds gathered by local Torontonians and blended them with traditional instruments to create an orchestra.

Imagine collaborating with a classical composer to create a symphony about your hometown. The people of Toronto, Canada, have done exactly that.
​
On Saturday 9 March, residents were treated to a ground-breaking concert that was the result of an almost year-long project.

Matt Galloway spoke with Tod Machover. He is the Creator of "A Toronto Symphony - Concerto for Composer and City". It premieres this Saturday night at Roy Thomson Hall as part of the TSO's New Creations Festival, and it will also be recorded for CBC Radio Two's "In Concert" and will be broadcast on Sunday, April 21st. 

By Richard Trapunski. 

​When composer/MIT professor Tod Machover accepted a commission from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's New Creations festival, he set out to answer one ostensibly simple question: what does Toronto sound like?

By Sue Carter Flinn. 

In early 2011, Peter Oundjian, the music director for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, enlisted Tod Machover to compose a piece for this year’s New Creations Festival, a week dedicated to contemporary orchestral music. The theme for 2013’s event is technology and the orchestra, and Oundjian wanted something that wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago. The 59-year-old Machover is a Boston-based musical innovator who believes that with the right technology, even those who skipped the childhood ritual of piano lessons or who are cursed with a tin ear can create a piece worthy of a concert hall. He came up with an ambitious plan to merge public contributions into an orchestral composition. It’s called A Toronto Symphony, and it premieres this month—a half-hour piece that incorporates thousands of sounds submitted by ordinary Torontonians, sounds that are meant to represent everyday experiences of the city.

By John Terauds. 

The big surprise in my final conversation with composer Tod Machover leading up to the premiere of  A Toronto Symphony at the New Creations festival on Saturday night was discovering that the CN Tower will be a part of the performance.

By Trish Crawford. 

​Brace yourself Toronto — this tune’s for you and it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve heard at a symphony.
Composer and innovator Tod Machover, who has invented electronic instruments for Yo-Yo Ma and is a co-creator of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, will lift the curtain Saturday on a truly original Toronto creation at Roy Thomson Hall.

By Marvin Glassman. 

Classical music composer Tod Machover has created a most unusual gift for Toronto residents.
​
As part of this week’s annual Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s New Creations Festival, Machover worked with some 10,000 collaborators for almost 15 months via the Internet to create A Toronto Symphony: Concerto For Composer And City, which will have its world premiere March 9 at Roy Thomson Hall.