Ensemble Robot Artistic Director

Ensemble Robot was founded in 2003 by Christine Southworth and Leila Hasan, as an organization of artists, engineers, programmers, and musicians, working to: (1) design, construct, and program an orchestra of robotic musical instruments and dancers,  (2) commission music and dance for this ensemble, and (3) design, organize, execute, and promote performances for robotic instruments in collaboration with human musicians and dancers. The primary goal of Ensemble Robot is the creation of new, visually and sonically attractive, robotic instruments and music, in order to push acoustic instrumentation beyond traditional boundaries imposed by physical limits of the human body.

Our goals in using robots in music have been to make music in a new way, unconstrained by the traditional notions of human music or by preconceived notions of how robot music should sound. Additionally, we see the robotic actuators (the “performers”) and the acoustic musical instruments as unified rather than separate entities.  We believe that our robot orchestra, as art, will expand the horizons of both music and humanity’s relation to machines.

Since 2003, we have created five musical robots, commissioned over a dozen new pieces by emerging and established composers, and produced concerts and installations at the Boston Museum of Science, Mass MoCA, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven, Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference, Wired Magazine’s Nextfest, Brown University, Boston University, RISD, and the Boston Cyberarts Festival.  Our robots have performed with more than fifty musicians, and after performing with Ensemble Robot, several of the musicians decided to compose for them.  We have received grants and awards from the LEF Foundation as well as support from Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Museum of Science, and have been praised by newspapers and magazines including the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Boston Phoenix, MIT’s Tech Talk, the Providence Journal, Computerworld, Linuxworld, Boston’s Weekly Dig, CNET News.com, and two radio interviews/features on WBUR’s”Here & Now” and “Morning Edition.”
Ensemble Robot is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Ensemble Robot artists include:

Larisa Berger - engineer, designer
Ramon Castillo – composer
Andy Cavatorta – engineer, designer
Chyle Crossley – artist
Giles Hall – programmer, software design
Leila Hasan – co-founder, engineer
Wenzday Jane - engineer
Jenny Olivia Johnson - composer
Paul Lansky - composer
Erik Nugent – engineer, designer, composer
Christine Southworth – co-founder, artistic director, composer
Bill Tremblay – engineer, designer
Alicia Volpicelli – engineer
Po-Chun Wang - composer
Eddie Whalen – composer
Evan Ziporyn – composer, artistic advisor

For more information about Ensemble Robot, please visit our website at www.ensemblerobot.org or email us at info@ensemblerobot.org.

Gamelan Galak Tika Composer / Performer / General Manager

Gamelan Galak Tika is America's most innovative Balinese Gamelan. Led by composer/clarinetist Evan Ziporyn, Galak Tika has performed groundbreaking music at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, BAM, two Bang on a Can Marathons, at colleges all over New England and New York, and throughout Bali, Indonesia. Galak Tika was formed in 1993 and is dedicated to commissioning and performing new works by Balinese and American composers, for gamelan and mixed ensembles of gamelan and Western instruments, as well as performing traditional Balinese music and dance. For more information or to enquire about booking Galak Tika, please visit www.galaktika.org or email gt@galaktika.org.

Gender Wayang: Gender Wayang is a form of music in Bali used principally to accompany shadow puppet performances as well as in ceremonies. I play as part of a duo, with Evan Ziporyn, and a quartet as part of Gamelan Galak Tika. For booking information, please contact me.