Tod Machover, called “America’s most wired composer” by The Los Angeles Times, is known for his innovative compositions as well as for designing new technologies for music. He is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music & Media at the MIT Media Lab, where he directs the Opera of the Future Group. He studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School in New York, and he was the first Director of Musical Research at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM in Paris. Machover is renowned for his pioneering work with Hyperinstruments. Machover is especially recognized for his unusual operas, including the science fiction VALIS, the audience-interactive Brain Opera and the robotic Death and the Powers. He is currently composing a new work for the Toronto Symphony, for which he has invited the whole city of Toronto to collaborate. This “Concerto for Composer and City” will premiere in March 2013.
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Zahra Kahn
Zahra Kahn is a recent graduate of MIT and works as an aerospace engineer in the Boston area. She has been involved in theater productions since her time at MIT. She is particularly interested in technical theater and has volunteered for several student and community theater productions in various capacities including technical director and Foley performer.
Olivia Sebesky
Olivia Sebesky designed the projections for Radium Girls, produced this past February by Northeastern University Theater. Credits also include Assistant Video/Projection Designer for the American Idiot National Tour (Work Light Productions) and Stop The Virgens (St. Ann’s Warehouse), as well as Assistant Set Designer for ‘ART’ (New Repertory Theatre) and One Night With Janis Joplin (Portland Center Stage).
Justin Townsend
Justin Townsend is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University and founding member of TENT. He provided the lighting design for URT’s 2011 production of Fever Chart. In NYC, lighting designs include Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Dance Dance Revolution (with Alex Timbers); Monstrosity (13P); Opus (Primary Stages); Speech and Debate (Roundabout); Eve Ensler’s The Treatment (The Culture Project); Food Project (Lightbox); Drums of the Waves of the Horikawa (Theatre of a Two Headed Calf); and Beauty on the Vine, Palace of the End and Mahida’s Extra Key to Heaven (Epic Theatre). Regionally, Mr. Townsend has designed lighting for the A.R.T. (Elliot Norton Award for The Onion Cellar), Arden Theatre, Baltimore Center Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Alliance Theatre, Hartford Stage, Kirk Douglas Theatre (Ovation Nominee for Apollo), The Intiman, Playmakers Rep, Portland Center Stage, The Boston Court and Georgia Shakespeare Festival. Scenic work includes collaborations with Two-Headed Calf, Alec Duffy, Lear Debessonet and Jen Harvey.
Anna Kohler
Anna Kohler , Music and Theater Arts faculty at MIT, studied acting and directing at the Conservatory for Art and Drama and Mozarteum University of Salzburg. She received her degree in Acting and Aesthetic Studies at the Université IIIV Vincennes in Paris after studying mime with Etienne Decroux. Since joining the NYC experimental theater scene in 1982, she has worked with Stuart Sherman, John Jesurun, Richard Foreman, Fiona Templeton and Werner Herzog. She is an associate member of the Wooster Group. She has worked with Steve Buscemi and Mark Boone Jr. Her solo performance, D’ Arc-ness, premiered at Amsterdam’s Triple X Festival. More recently, she has toured Europe with Ode to the Man Who Kneels, written and directed by Richard Maxwell. She appeared in movies by Jonathan Demme, Peter Sellars and Hal Hartley. Her directing work has been shown in Salzburg; Kiel, Germany; Saõ Paulo; and NYC.