Just before Christmas, I posted about the sleeve art for guitarist, composer and Sibelius user Pat Metheny’s new album, Orchestrion, which features a Sibelius 6 box lurking amidst the huge variety of musical instruments that cram the picture. (If you look really closely you can see Pat himself at the left-hand side, hiding behind his guitar!)
Of course, what’s really interesting about the sleeve art for Orchestrion is not that it features a Sibelius box, but rather that all of the instruments shown on the cover can be controlled remotely by Metheny using his guitar: the real orchestrion of the title.
The YouTube video embedded above is a look behind the scenes at how Orchestrion was put together, and just how incredible the performance of the robot-controlled instruments, created by the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) really is. Amazing stuff.
Orchestrion is released today
Eric Singer
As the Director of LEMUR, the group that created most of the robotic musical instruments for Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion, I was thrilled to be a part of this project. To see video and more of LEMUR’s musical robots and the music we create with them, see http://lemurbots.org. — Eric Singer
Daniel Spreadbury
Thanks for stopping by, Eric. Your robots are awesome!