An orchestra of automated instruments – robots – controlled by digital impulses. This ensemble of musical robots (part of the Logos foundation in Ghent) includes numerous classical instruments as well as many unconventional instruments, making it the largest orchestra of robots in existence.

When composer Leonardo Barbadoro from Firenze, Italy, heard about this extraordinary ensemble, he started writing compositions for it, and decided to make it his thesis project at the Conservatory.
When it turned out that Logos had some problems with funding, Barbardoro created a crowdfunding campaign in 2018 to still be able to realise this album.

In his own words

“The expressive possibilities of these instruments (percussion, wind and vibrating objects), thanks to their many controllable parameters, are innumerable: in fact, these are not limited to note control, but also dynamics, sound envelope, microtonal control and much more.
If it is true that an electronic instrument can foster compositional invention, exploring where the musician, due to anatomical limits, cannot go, it is equally true that the sound produced by a vibration in real space has physical characteristics that make the sonic uniqueness of every single event fascinating. The second aspect is the precise control of every detail of the performance. Traditionally, the composer entrusts the score to the musicians, who perform it by translating the signs into actions. In this scenario, an ineliminable gap emerges between the author’s concept and the sound event.
This, in the case of Musica Automata, does not happen: Leonardo was able to calibrate and draw every tonal detail for every single note played. What you hear, therefore, is the exact and arbitrary snapshot of the musical fact imagined by the author who, in doing so, also becomes the performer of his own work.

Just as the generative phenomenon of Musica Automata takes place in the convergence of two contrary conditions (electronic and acoustic), the very aesthetics of the compositions oscillates between opposite poles of musical language. The agogic and dynamic variations weave between crescendos and rapid contractions but also open onto contemplative scenarios, where the urgency of the orchestral mass full of motifs, timbres, and directions will give way to the essentiality of a single element ¬– a clear, diaphanous calm emerging from orchestral mass full of motifs.” (Leonardo Barbardoro)

12 Tracks, total playing time about 40 minutes. Hand Numbered Limited edition of 400 6 pages digipack CD.
Includes digital download.

This album is also available on vinyl, here.