"Assertive blast of hard rock...soon moves the players through a parade of quirkier, bright-hued pop styles in an appealingly unpredictable structure." - Allan Kozinn, New York Times
"Pleasingly post-minimalist" - L.A. Times
"Talk
about an ELECTRIC performer!" - Providence
Journal
Christine Southworth's "Honey Flyers" did conjure quivers of bees, but not in the traditional sense: The three-part composition somewhat resembled the buzzing hives, but flowered into something with almost traditional pop structure. - Annie Zaleski, Riverfront Times
"as gently balladic (as it is) hard-driving
" - The Boston Herald
"High-voltage
Star-Power!" - Tech Talk
"Sinister and athletic" - L.A. Times
"Truly electrifying!" - Boston Phoenix
"IT WAS WEIRD. IT WAS SWEET. As one would imagine, it was a strange as hell. And it pretty much ruled." - Metal Edge Magazine (Calder Quartet + Andrew W.K. w/ Bot(i)Cello at Le Poisson Rouge, 11/15/08)
"intense and captivating" - Stacey Lansing, Mixtapes/Heartbreaks
"Concerning the Doodle" performed by The Bang on a Can All-Stars at Merkin Hall, February 24, 2010
(Concerning the Doodle) by Christine Southworth was a vast pop panoply about an imagined dream that her dog had. I heard elements of Kraftwerk, King Crimson, Laurie Anderson, Yes, Peter Frampton(!), bluegrass, and Pentangle. Very fun.
- Hugh Haggerty, Mchuge.net
Christine Southworth’s “Concerning the Doodle” accompanies a film (about the adventures and fantasies of a dog) by the Clever Girls Collaborative . It is straightforward, texturally and harmonically: the piece begins as an assertive blast of hard rock, driven by David Cossin’s drumming, the guitarist Mark Stewart’s power chords and Robert Black’s solid bass. But Ms. Southworth soon moves the players through a parade of quirkier, bright-hued pop styles in an appealingly unpredictable structure driven by the film. - Allan Kozinn, New York Times
"Honey Flyers" performed by The Calder Quartet & Andrew W.K. @ Swedish American Theater, San Francisco, October 7, 2009
The first half of the show ended with Christine Southworth’s “Honey Flyers” which consisted mainly of AWK watching the Calder Quartet be awesome. Truly, this piece was mainly there so that Calder Quartet could show off. In fact, I had the thought during this particular part of the show that Andrew W.K. was doing this event so that he could show off the greatness of the Calder Quartet. - Gordon Elgart, Spinning Platters
They collaborated on a robotics-infused piece by Christine Southworth, one of the Calder's favorite living composers. - Richard Scheinin, San Jose Mercury News
Rounding out the first half of the program was the intense and captivating “Honey Flyers” – a three-movement piece that reminded me a bit of the Kronos Quartet’s collaborations with Clint Mansell.- Stacey Lansing, Mixtapes/Heartbreaks
"Honey Flyers" performed by The Calder Quartet & Andrew W.K. @ Lakeshore Theater, Chicago, October 1, 2009
Clapping didn’t have to wait for the end of the piece; head banging had never felt so painless; foot stomping had never been so welcome. A string quartet has rarely been so loose. The members could rarely hold themselves from smiling and rocking out, banging their heads to their own chords. -Laurie Rojas, Time Out Chicago
"Honey Flyers" performed by The Calder Quartet & Andrew W.K. @ Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, MA, September 30, 2009
Christine Southworth's "Honey Flyers" did conjure quivers of bees, but not in the traditional sense: The three-part composition somewhat resembled the buzzing hives, but flowered into something with almost traditional pop structure. -Annie Zaleski, Riverfront Times
Christine Southworth’s “Honey Flyers” was an intense musical maelstrom, inspiring a sudden vision of riding through a dark forest on a stormy night in a horse-drawn carriage. Dunno; just saying. The violin took human form midway through, screaming like a hysterical woman. Then soft, wistful cries over a terse backbeat of viola and cello. An extraordinary work, beautifully executed. This piece is often performed with a Bot(i)cello, an electric string robot designed by Christine Southworth and others at Ensemble Robot. Although the Bot(i)cello had the evening off, it was still very beautiful. - Julie Stroller, The Boston Survival Guide
"Honey Flyers" @ Le Poisson Rouge, November 15, 2008
" an absolutely beautiful song reminiscent of a combination of God Is An Astronaut mixed with the Tosca Tango Orchestra's Waking Life soundtrack, with huge dramatic breaks and patterns that drew out the beauty of these "Honey Flyers." - Joe Dahlstrom, JamBase
Zap!, Boston Museum of Science, April 27, 2007
Listen to Radio Features on
ZAP! : |
Marrying Science and Music (wgbh.org)
with Senior Health Desk correspondent Helen Palmer, WGBH |
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Music & The Invasion of Technology, featuring Heavy Metal Boston Museum of Science, January 25, 2006
Listen to Radio Features on
Music & The Invasion of Technology :
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HERE & NOW (mp3, 10.8 MB) a
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
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| Read features about Music & The Invasion of Technology and Ensemble Robot: |
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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.
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CNET: News.com
Robots Play a New Sound of Music |
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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
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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) |
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Zap!, Boston Museum of Science, February 4, 2005
ZAP!
is "truly electrifying!"
Will Spitz, The
Boston Phoenix, "Out:
Going Electric" 2/10/05
Features:
"Talk
about an ELECTRIC performer!"
Providence
Journal pop music writer Rick Massimo's preview :
"A High Power Show at the Museum of Science"
"as gently balladic (as it is) hard-driving
and otherworldly"
Bob
Young's preview from The
Boston Herald/The Edge:
"Ensemble
Robot creators `Zap!' preconceived ideas of electronic
music"
"High-voltage
Star-Power!"
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
FRIDAY 4
AVANT-GARDE
The Museum of Science's 40-foot-tall Van de Graaff generator is an imposing
one-trick pony - if you've seen one five-million-volt spark, you've about seen
'em all - but now a young composer is going to make it sing. Brown grad student
Christine Southworth has written an hour-long piece called Zap! that calls for
a chamber/rock set-up (keyboards, flute, guitar, bass, voice, percussion), "robotic
instruments" programmed by a team of MIT/RISD engineers, and one mammoth
sparking machine. Both the generator and Southworth are MIT alums: the composer
studied with Evan Ziporyn and describes her work as Steve Reich-influenced, post-minimalist
acoustic electronica; the museum's Van de Graaff (the world's largest air-insulated
model) was built at MIT in the 1940s and is said to be fond of the Velvet Underground's
White Light/White Heat. Zap! gets its premiere tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Museum
of Science, at Science Park in Boston, and it's free with museum admission, which
is $14, $11 for children. Call (617) 723-2500.
- Boston Globe 48
Hours to Kickoff & Go!
Column 2/4/05
48 hours to kick
off: Come
Sunday night, you'll be parked in front of
the TV, waiting for the Pats to take the
field. Here's what you can do to keep busy
until then. February 4, 2005
FRIDAY 6 PM Quitting
time at the Museum of Science involves electricity, robots,
and vodka, but happily not in that order. Start with
a martini at the Science Street Cafe. At 6:30, the 40-foot
Van de Graaff electric sparking generator becomes the
centerpiece of a concert called ''Zap!" featuring
real and robotic musicians. $14 adults; $12 senior citizens;
$11 children. Science Park, Boston; 617-723-2500.
GO! WEEKEND By
Amy Graves | February
4, 2005
HIGH ENERGY
The towering Van de Graaff electric generator in
the Theatre of Electricity of the Museum of Science
throws off some serious sparks -- about 1.5 million
volts' worth, we're told. Little did we know that
it also can be manipulated to make music. In ''Zap!," composer
Christine Southworth and robotics engineer Leila Hasan,
alumnae of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
use the Van de Graaff to add sparks and static to an
hourlong concert with eight other musicians. Southworth
composed the music; Hasan controls the generator with
a laser-theremin midi controller. Laurie Anderson would
be so proud. At 6:30 p.m. Tickets $14; includes museum
admission. Science
Park, Boston, 617-723-2500.
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.
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