Professor Tod Machover delivers the keynote talk at the International Conference celebrating Arnold Schoenberg’s 150th birthday, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China. 

Composer-to-Composer: Communicating Across Time and Place in Schoenberg in Hollywood

Schoenberg in Hollywood—created by MIT Media Lab professor Tod Machover; commissioned and premiered by Boston Lyric Opera in 2018—depicts the development of Arnold Schoenberg’s music in relation to his extraordinary life. In doing so, it explores questions essential to Schoenberg’s journey: the relationship between uncompromising artistic integrity and popular acceptance (i.e., Hollywood), between tradition and revolution, and between “saving the world” through art or through some other kind of direct action. Composing this work was based on a lifelong devotion to—and inspiration from—Schoenberg’s music, and the creative process was a kind of collaboration with this great composer from long ago and far away. This talk describes aspects of that process, drawing examples from the resultant work, and will provide some context from Tod Machover's previous operas and musical experiments.