Robotorgan

It's not every day you hear Josquin, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Liszt and Beethoven alongside Queen, Beatles, Elijah and Britney Spears in a repertoire performed by a fully robotic orchestra. Today, the Robot Organ and its "orchestra" do all of these things at once. It takes listeners on a journey through music history, as Dániel Váczi orchestrates some of the most significant musical compositions of several centuries on computer-controlled, but fully acoustic instruments.

The jewel of the House of Hungarian Music's Creative Sound Space, which opened in 2022, is the experimental organ, which it is no exaggeration to say is a true Hungaricum. The concept of the installation was largely developed by Dániel Váczi on the basis of ideas that György Ligeti had already dreamt up in the 1960s for the organ of the future. The fully computerised (MIDI) control is itself capable of producing unusual sounds, but the remote control here uniquely extends to parameters such as wind pressure and the tuning of the pipes.

At the same time, Robotorgona is supported by an entire orchestra, all of which is also controlled by a computer. The members include drums, marimba, accordion, pianino and glockenspiel.