Pat Metheny and the Orchestrion

Posted 13 Apr 2010 at 02:41 UTC by steve

Musician Pat Metheny is currently touring with a robotic orchestra, called the Orchestrion Project. It includes a wide range of instruments which are robotically actuated and controlled in real time by Pat Metheny himself. It doesn't appear any of the instruments are purely autonomous robots but they do seem to have a very sophisticated automatic control system that allows the human musician to improvise freely (and it certainly puts my own feeble efforts to shame!). Looks like a lot of fun, so if you're interested in robots and music, check the tour schedule to see when Pat and his robot band will be in a town near you. They're coming to Dallas tomorrow, so if I get the chance to check it out, I'll post a review.