Tod Machover, the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media, faculty director of the MIT Media Lab, and director of the Opera of the Future research group, will receive the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music and Dance in America — the highest honor bestowed by the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. 

As a composer and music tech pioneer, Machover has helped expand music’s possibilities for artists and audiences alike through his work in participatory opera, artificial intelligence, and creative technologies. He joins a roster of previous George Peabody Medal recipients that includes Stevie Wonder, Misty Copeland, Herbie Hancock, Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Wynton Marsalis, Ella Fitzgerald, and Leonard Bernstein.

In the citation for the Peabody Medal, Peabody Institute Dean Fred Bronstein writes: “The breadth and depth of Tod Machover’s career — his work in participatory opera, as an educator and faculty director of the MIT Media Lab, his genuinely groundbreaking and prescient work at the intersection of music and technology, along with an overall and broad impact on the American music scene — make him an ideal recipient for the Peabody Medal … Machover continues to provide inspiration especially in the fast-evolving relationship between AI and the creative process. We are honored to welcome to campus a true pioneer and thought leader.”

Hailed as a “musical visionary” and “America’s most wired composer,” Machover is recognized as one of the most innovative composers active today. He is praised for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries and for developing technologies that expand music’s potential for everyone.

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