A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City is a collaborative orchestral work by Tod Machover and the City of Toronto that was commissioned for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's New Creations Festival during the 2012–2013 season.
I worked with Tod Machover to conceptualize how he could engage Torontonians in the composition process and how thousands of participants could collaborate on a single musical composition. Each participant needed to be able to make significant, identifiable contributions to the sonic portrait of their city, regardless of musical experience. I developed web-based applications that leverage abstraction of expressive qualities to allow Torontonians to sculpt and weave musical matter in conjunction with Machover in order to evolve a final composition.
For the premiere performance of A Toronto Symphony, I also created a projected visual accompaniment to the piece illustrating its structure, contributions, and imagery. I also designed a representation of the symphony as a light show on Toronto's iconic CN Tower that, controlled interactively by the live orchestra performance, was presented simultaneously to the premiere concert.