Dresden: Robo-conductor takes the baton

Three robotic arms stand on the podium, each with a glowing baton in their hand-like apparatuses. The creature has been tasked with conducting the world-renowned Dresden Symphony Orchestra in a concert this past weekend in Dresden.

It was the artistic director Markus Rindt's idea of a unique way to celebrate the orchestra's 25th anniversary. "I'm very interested in technology, I like to experiment and see how such projects can develop," he told DW.

In total, 16 brass players and four percussionists from the Dresden Synfoniker followed the instructions of the robot. The project was exciting — but also very stressful, said one musician. "When it does certain movements, when the arm stops and moves in a certain way, it gives me the creeps," another musician added.

How can a robot conduct?

The robot, a MAiRA Pro S nicknamed "Franka Emika," has astonishing control over details — and that's thanks to the human genius behind it. Markus Rindt spent two years working with Frank Peters, head of the robotics research group at Technical University Dresden's CeTI, which stands for Center for Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop. 

Each robotic"arm" has seven joints which allows it to conduct exactly as a human arm would. Rindt also helped the robot perfect its movements. "We put the robot in an operating mode so that it responded to the slightest touch," explains Frank Peters. "Markus then took the robot arm and guided it, just as he would with a human apprentice conductor." The movements were stored separately for each robot. Each one learned to keep the beat and indicate changes in dynamics.

The Dresden Symphony Orchestra on the lookout for innovation

Rindt and his Dresden Symphony Orchestra are known for their innovative and politically provocative actions. "During the pandemic, for example, we placed 16 alphorns on skyscrapers and blasted an entire district of Dresden with sound from above," says Rindt. The orchestra also played in protest against the border wall built between Mexico and the USA in a project that involved musicians from both countries. The wall was highly contentious — then-president Donald Trump hoped it would help stop the migration of people from Latin America.

In 2013, Rindt brought Israeli and Palestinian musicians together on a tour of the West Bank with a "Symphony for Palestine." And together with Turkish and Armenian musicians, the Dresden Symphony Orchestra commemorated those killed during the Armenian genocide.

Composing for a three-armed robot

And now with the Robot Symphony project, Rindt explores the age-old question of how man and machine can interact with one another. To what extent do robots serve humans and at what point do robots become a danger to them by intervening in artistic processes?

"I have great respect for the danger that is looming for music, for composers and arrangers. That's why I wouldn't do a project with artificial intelligence right now," says Rindt, "but I was fascinated by the idea of using a robot to broaden our musical horizons."

The project is not about replacing humans with machines, but about composing special music for a robot that a conductor would find difficult or even impossible to make happen.

Robotic precision opens horizons

Commissioned by the orchestra, Wieland Reissmann composed the piece "#Kreuzknoten." It uses two robots, each of which conducts an orchestra group. One starts slowly and speeds up, the other starts quickly and slows down. In the middle of the piece, they briefly meet to play at the same tempo.

The new composition commissioned for the project, "Semiconductor's Masterpiece" by Andreas Gundlach, uses all three robot "arms" and plays with different tempos and rhythms that clash with one another. "It is precisely this alternating sequence of asynchrony, where the robots play different tempos and time signatures, but can then play synchronously again at a precisely desired moment, that two or three conductors can't manage," explains Frank Peters.

The conductor remains irreplaceable

However, the orchestra couldn't do without a flesh-and-blood conductor at the anniversary concert. Half of the program was conducted by a human being, Norwegian conductor Magnus Loddgard.

The music composed for the robots is very complex, says Loddgard. "You need to work on getting oriented during rehearsals — to know which arm you should be looking at as a musician." After all, the robot has no eyes to see what is happening in the orchestra and it cannot talk or explain things, adds the conductor.

Some of the pieces in the concert weren't conducted by the robot, but still used new technologies. The concert overture "f..A..lling. l..I..nes" (Falling in Lines) by Markus Lehmann-Horn, was composed with the help of tools that work with artificial intelligence. The piece draw on musical repertoire easily found online and with the help of AI, sequences are strung together in new ways. Meanwhile, the work "Voyager 2" by Greek composer Konstantia Gourzi explored technological achievements of space travel.

The future of new music

Conductor Magnus Loddgard is open minded when it comes to technology. To him, a robot conducing everything perfectly is interesting, but can quickly become monotonous. "Art is a living thing,” explains the conductor, adding that people don't want to be told how to play by a robot. "It's about thinking about how we can find a sound together in an orchestra."

Music for robots will not replace classical music, says artistic director Markus Rindt, pointing out how electronic music hasn't led to the end of classical music, for example. Rindt, meanwhile, is looking forward to seeing how other composers might create music suitable for robots in the future. 

And what did the audience think of the unusual performance? "It was fascinating, but of course it can't be compared to a human conductor whose face shows emotion," said one audience member. Another summed up: "It was pretty scary at times. Especially when the robots bowed at the end."

This article was translated from German.