Tod Machover

Tod Machover is a composer, inventor, and Faculty Director of the MIT Media Lab, where he is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media and directs the Opera of the Future group. His work combines music and emerging technologies to expand creative expression, from Hyperinstruments and Hyperscore to applications of AI and sound for health and wellbeing.

Machover’s music has been commissioned and performed by organizations and artists including Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, Centre Pompidou, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joyce DiDonato. His groundbreaking operas include VALIS, Brain Opera, Death and the Powers—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—and Schoenberg in Hollywood. His honors include recognition from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Musical America, which named him Composer of the Year.

Machover is currently developing The Overstory, an opera based on Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel exploring relationships between humans and the non-human world, scheduled to premiere at Boston Lyric Opera in 2028. His current projects also include a new Boston Symphony Orchestra commission and “City Symphonies,” collaborative sonic portraits created with communities around the world.