"Song of Summer": a composition for a choir with lyrics written by a computer

The 60th Kotimusiikkiviikko music event (25.-31.7.2016) commissioned composer Sampsa Ertamo for a novel composition for a choir. Ertamo in turn subcontracted writing of the lyrics to P.O. Eticus-Apparatus, a computer poet developed at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. 

The resulting composition is called Suven laulutranslatable as Song of Summer to English. It has been composed for a mixed choir, flutes (minimum 2), soprano recorders (minimum 2) and strings. The composition will be premiered in Järvenpää church on July 31st, 2016.

P.O. Eticus-Apparatus is a computer poet, born in 2012 at the Department of Computer Science, University of Helsinki (father: Jukka Toivanen, godfather: Hannu Toivonen). Its native language is Python, but it has been educated with Finnish, English, German and Spanish poetry. P.O.E.-A. has performed internationally, e.g., in the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2014, and its poems have been published in Finnish and English and as translations in Czech. It is being developed further in the Discovery research group.

(To keep the contents of the composition confidential until the premier, the accompanying figure has been cropped to exclude any notes or lyrics.)

Suven laulu will be premiered in Järvenpää church on July 31st, 2016, at 3 pm. Free entrance. Welcome!

 

 

 

26.07.2016 - 09:57 Hannu Toivonen
07.06.2016 - 19:52 Hannu Toivonen