Symphony San Jose will be giving audiences at the California Theatre an experience they’ve never had before — watching cellist Yves Dhar take part in a on-stage musical battle with an AI-driven hologram called AGNES.
Adam Schoenberg’s “Automation” isn’t your grandpa’s idea of a concerto, but it’s pitch perfect for Silicon Valley.
“Does music generated by a machine with no soul move us the same way as music created by a human?” Robert Massey, executive artistic director for Symphony San Jose, wonders. “The concert asks that question of listeners.”
In 2019, Dhar and Schoenberg began collaborating on a cello concerto commission that they wanted to have a unique impact. Dhar jokingly threw out the suggestion of putting a hologram on stage, and the idea stuck. Before long, Schoenberg was working with fellow teachers at Occidental College’s computer science department to develop a machine-learning algorithm that could eventually compose its own original content. The result was AGNES, which stands for Automatic Generator Network for Excellent Songs.
“The deeper we dug, the more meaning we uncovered behind human and hologram facing off in an orchestral arena,” Dhar wrote in an article last summer for Chamber Music America. “It’s old versus new, analog versus digital, acoustic versus electronic, stage versus film, live versus virtual, man versus machine.”
There’ll be a cinematic vibe to “Automation,” which had its premiere with the Louisville Symphony in 2022, as the composition and the action on stage create a narrative for the audience to follow. The “hologram” will be created through the use of a special screen and projector, sort of a modern version of the old “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion, that requires a whole rehearsal just for the tech aspects, Massey said. “Automation” will also feature the use of a Halldorophone, an electronic cello-like instrument with an otherworldly sound that’s rarely heard outside of special solo performances and movie scores.
The concerts — 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday — will be preceded by a panel discussion an hour before curtain about the use of artificial intelligence in music with Schoenberg and Kathryn Leonard, a computer science professor at Occidental who worked on AGNES, and moderated by Nick Larson of the Silicon Zombies podcast.
The remainder of the program will also have a science-fiction/fantasy theme with John Adams’ brilliant “Short Ride in a Fast Machine”; “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas, which most people know from Disney’s “Fantasia” and Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” made famous by 1968’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” but perhaps more recently discovered by the legions who saw last summer’s blockbuster “Barbie.” Tickets are available at www.symphonysanjose.org.
“It’s definitely one not to be missed,” Massey said of the program. “We hope it gets a lot of people intrigued who don’t normally come into the hall, and the music is also just great.”
CAMPBELL CONSTRUCTION: If you’ve been to downtown Campbell lately, you’ve probably noticed that $22.3 million renovation of the library is underway. With the old building just a shell of its former self, library patrons are redirected to the temporary Campbell Express Library at the Campbell Community Center’s Building E. And the new police building is also set to break ground this Thursday on First Street, though it’s unclear when construction will get underway on that $29.5 million project.
All that construction means the city of Campbell won’t be able to host its regular Thursday evening summer concert series on Orchard City Green near the Ainsley House. The construction won’t affect music events on Campbell Avenue or inside other venues, though, and hopefully everything’s wrapped up in time for next summer.
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COUNTY HONORS MR. ROADSHOW: The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors adjourned its meeting Tuesday morning in memory of my colleague Gary Richards, aka Mr. Roadshow, who died Dec. 17. The San Jose City Council did the same a few weeks ago, but it’s still inspiring to see the impact Gary had on not just the people who use our roads, but the policymakers who manage them, too. Supervisor Cindy Chavez said that every transportation board she sits on — VTA, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrain — has adjourned a meeting in memory of Mr. Roadshow.
I’m still in favor of renaming a San Jose Street after Gary Richards, and reader Mark Warren was one of several people who agreed with the notion. But Warren says he’s got another idea: Naming a section of one of the South Bay freeways after Gary and he’s got a suggestion, too. “If I were to choose one, I’d select the section of Highway 101 that’s been under construction for as long as Gary wrote the Mr. Roadshow column, between San Jose and Menlo Park,” he said.
That’s not bad, but I don’t think anyone’s ever happy when they’re driving that stretch of road. Maybe we can come up with something inspires a few more smiles.
