Robot EveR6
(c) National Theatre of Korea
An android robot named EveR 6, took the conductor’s podium in Seoul yesterday evening. The robot, designed by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, made its debut at the National Theater of Korea, leading musicians in the country’s national orchestra.
The robot, with a humanoid face, first bowed to the audience and started waving its arms to control the tempo of the music. EveR6 followed a pre-programmed path, after having been trained using motion capture information of baton movements and speed as performed by a live conductor.
In the orchestra’s program EveR6 conducted first alone, then joined conductor Choi Soo-yeol in a collaborative performance of Sense by composer Ill Hoon Son, a work that offers instructions rather than scores to its performers, and which requires an unusual degree of communication between players and conductor.
Robot EveR6
(c) National Theatre of Korea
“The advantage of a robot is that it is extremely precise,” said Choi Soo-yeol in a press conference, who also highlighted that the primary challenge for robots is the “real-time interaction and communication, particularly in the context of music.”
This is not the first performance to feature an artistic android. A robot developed by Honda, Asimo, conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a performance featuring Yo-Yo Ma in 2008. In 2017, robot YuMi conducted the Lucca Philharmonic. In Japan, the robots Alter 2 and Alter 3 have each conducted performances.
