Robot conductor aids musical evolution

A three-armed conductor of music has begun entertaining audiences in the German city of Dresden, in the latest example of a machine doing something previously thought the sole domain of humans.

MAiRA Pro S is not aiming to replace human conductors, its creators say, but to lead on interpreting compositions that people have insufficient arms and inadequate split-timing to signal.

So far, MAiRA Pro S has led the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, or Sinfoniker, twice during performances on the weekend of music written specifically to make the most of its talents.

Markus Rindt, artistic director of the Sinfoniker, told local broadcaster MDR he had wanted to incorporate a robot conductor into the orchestra for more than two decades and made his ambition a reality by working with specialists at the Technical University Dresden's Centre for Tactile Internet, or CeTI.

He told MDR he first had the idea 23 years ago, when one of his bassoonists told him.

"You're conducting the clarinets in 3/4 time and I have 5/8, a totally different tempo — what should I do, no one is conducting me?"

He told the broadcaster he replied "I'm not a robot", but the exchange got him thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to create a robot capable of conducting music in multiple time signatures at the same time.

Rindt taught the MAiRA Pro S created by CeTI the basics and the robot has since been adapting and improving for two years.

The Sinfoniker showcased its talents by performing #kreuzknoten by Wieland Reismann and Semiconductor's Masterpiece by Andreas Gundlach. Both pieces were written specially for the event, which was also a celebration of the orchestra's 25th birthday.

Gundlach's piece featured 16 brass musicians and four percussionists playing in different time signatures, with some starting slowly and accelerating and others starting fast and slowing down.

Gundlach told MDR his piece would have been impossible for a human conductor but that MAiRA Pro S made it sound "like it came from a single source".

Rindt said he hoped the performance would challenge people to think about how we should "deal with new technologies that are capable of fundamentally changing our society".

"Where could opportunities lie alongside known risks?" the Deutsche Welle news agency quoted him as saying. "Could a new, very unique musical expression emerge as a result of the collaboration between humans and machines?"

While MAiRA Pro S is the most advanced robot conductor so far, the first was a 1.2-meter-tall automaton with a baton that conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 2008. And there have been others, including one that led Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli in Pisa in 2017 and an android that conducted in Seoul's National Theater of Korea in 2023.