Robots "Sing" a Wistful Opera Song

Take a listen to robotic opera, the creative and collaborative effort between Temple faculty in The Boyer College of Music and Dance and the College of Scien...
two Temple faculty members are giving the world robot opera.

Three research robots will join five singers and a chorus to present "Galatea_Reset" for three 90-minute performances in Temple’s Conwell Dance Theater on Sept. 20-21.

The autonomous robots will produce all of the music and sounds as well as portray characters in the lyrical theater production.

A collaborative work between Maurice Wright, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Music Composition in the Boyer College of Music and Dance, and Rolf Lakaemper, associate professor of computer and information sciences in the College of Science and Technology, "Galatea_Reset" tells the mythological story of sculptor Pygmalion, who falls in love with his creation Galatea only to have her brought to life for him by the Goddess Venus.

Wright and Lakaemper have been discussing ways of working collaboratively since meeting at a faculty reception a decade ago and discovering they had similar interests — Wright in computer science, Lakaemper in music.

Two years ago, they were awarded a grant from the Temple Commission on the Arts for new collaborations between the sciences and the creative arts and have spent the past year-and-a-half developing their robot opera.