Ensemble Robot is an organization of artists, engineers, programmers, and musicians, working together to design and construct robotic musical instruments and to commission music and produce audiovisual performances for these robots in collaboration with human performers. We believe that Ensemble Robot is very culturally significant, providing a bridge between performing arts and technology in the greater Boston area, where there are vital communities of both artists and scientists that have much in common but rarely overlap. With Ensemble Robot, we bring together artists and engineers to develop new creations that we believe can only be realized through this kind of collaboration. Our audiences are comprised of adults and children, students and professors, artists, music lovers, engineers, programmers, and scientists, all interested in different aspects of the project and enthralled by our enthusiasm to make attractive music using machines and people, using the talents of each to compliment the other and produce results that could not be otherwise achieved.
Ensemble Robot was founded in 2003 by Christine Southworth and Leila Hasan, and over the past five years has grown into an organization of over a dozen artists, has created five robotic musical instruments, commissioned works from 10 composers and performed throughout New England at venues and festivals including the Boston Museum of Science, Boston Cyberarts Festival, Wired Magazine’s Nextfest in New York, Mass MoCA, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference, Brown, Boston University, Rhode Island School of Design and M.I.T.
Since being founded in 2003 by Christine Southworth and Leila Hasan, Ensemble Robot has created five musical robots, commissioned works from 10 composers, and performed throughout New England at venues and festivals including the Boston Museum of Science, Boston Cyberarts Festival, Wired Magazine’s Nextfest in New York, Mass MoCA, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference, Brown, Boston University, Rhode Island School of Design and M.I.T. Ensemble Robot has been funded by the LEF Foundation, Meet the Composer, New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Museum of Science, and has received praise from multiple 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.”
