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MIT Professor Tod Machover's opera 'Skellig' to premiere in Gateshead, Nov 24-29

Cambridge, MA...Skellig,a new opera composed by Tod Machover, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, will premiere at the Norman Foster-designed Sage Gateshead (Newcastle, UK) on November 24, 2008.

Based on the best-selling novel by David Almond, who also wrote the libretto, Skellig will lead audiences of all ages into the coarse world of an ambiguous world-weary angel who regains his wings through the care and belief of two young people, Michael and Mina. The work combines world famous singers with a youth chorus, and the acoustic Northern Sinfonia with Machover's signature electronics, using innovative new performance technologies developed at the MIT Media Lab.

Known for his inventiveness as a musician and as a creator of new technology for musical instruments, Machover is head of the Media Lab's Hyperinstruments/Opera of the Future group. An influential composer, he has been praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries; his music has been performed and commissioned by some of the world's most important performers and ensembles.

Skellig author David Almond told the Guardian (UK), "Machover is an explorer of form, an inventor of instruments, a cellist, a creator of astonishing music. He works with orchestras, computers and robots... He is a professor at MIT who has worked with Pierre Boulez, Prince, and with schoolkids in Glasgow. He is uncategorisable."

"Musically, Skellig is very exciting. It’s not a traditional opera but hopefully it will change people’s opinion of what an opera actually is," American soprano Merrin Lazyan, who portrays Mina told the Journal (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK).

"I was first drawn to creating a musical version of Skellig because the whole book is bathed in sound," wrote Machover, as he listed what he called the work's "enveloping sounds of nature and 'the world' that define each scene and situation, and tiny sounds – from beating hearts to baby birds – that can only be heard with careful listening and growing awareness."

Machover was also drawn to the way the work "speaks in such a special way to young adults while also being relevant and deeply moving to those both older and younger than that target group."

He wrote, "In reading the book and then in creating the musical world of the opera, I realized that I could identify with every single character as if their predicament were my own, something I have tried to intensify through music. My hope is that this potential sympathy for everyone on stage will allow a multigenerational audience to better understand one another, and in so doing, to enjoy Skellig together as a truly communal experience."

Machover, who received both his BA and MA from the Juilliard School in New York, has composed five operas and is the inventor of Hyperinstruments, a technology that uses smart computers to augment virtuosity. Hyperinstruments have been used by performers such as Yo-Yo Ma, Prince, and Peter Gabriel. Machover is also the creator of the Toy Symphony, an international music performance and education project. His research group is currently examining ways to use music in therapy for emotionally and physically challenged individuals. Machover was formerly director of musical research at Pierre Boulez's IRCAM institute in Paris.

In 1995, Machover received a "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres," one of France's highest cultural honors, and in 1998 he was awarded the first DigiGlobe Prize from the German government.