Oct 22, 2026 · 5 min · 6 segments
MIT Media Lab composer Tod Machover’s “already and not yet” puts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in dialogue with a live AI system that responds to each musician's performance. Even players wary of AI…
Andrea Shea
This is Todd Macover playing his cello at the MIT Media Lab, where he's a founding faculty member.
know, for 30-plus years, I've been interested in technology and want the technology to respond to what humans are trying to express.
Two years ago, he jumped at the chance to express something new through a Boston Symphony Orchestra commission.
He wrote a 25-minute piece titled Already and Not Yet, that pairs 80-plus musicians with live AI on stage.
The software is like a collaborator, and we've designed it like that.
What we're interested in is how can we think
about this as an instrument.
Manaswi Mishra, a PhD student in Macover's Opera of the Future group, helped build the AI tool.
I'm just very excited for the future of AI music when put in the hands of musicians.
I do not think that the future of AI music is in just requesting music, but actually participating in the happening of the music.
Mishra will also be on stage at Symphony Hall, guiding the sophisticated technology as it listens to the BSO musicians playing and then responds by transforming their sounds.
This is Todd Macover playing his cello at the MIT Media Lab, where he's a founding faculty member.
know, for 30-plus years, I've been interested in technology and want the technology to respond to what humans are trying to express.
Two years ago, he jumped at the chance to express something new through a Boston Symphony Orchestra commission.
He wrote a 25-minute piece titled Already and Not Yet, that pairs 80-plus musicians with live AI on stage.
The software is like a collaborator, and we've designed it like that.
What we're interested in is how can we think
about this as an instrument.
Manaswi Mishra, a PhD student in Macover's Opera of the Future group, helped build the AI tool.
I'm just very excited for the future of AI music when put in the hands of musicians.
I do not think that the future of AI music is in just requesting music, but actually participating in the happening of the music.
Mishra will also be on stage at Symphony Hall, guiding the sophisticated technology as it listens to the BSO musicians playing and then responds by transforming their sounds.
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