Movie — Vaclav Huml Hall, Music Academy Zagreb

Opus Cope: An Algorithmic Opera  | Jae Shim

David Cope was commissioned to write an opera in the 1980's when he suffered a major composer's block, sparking interest in a computing partner named EMI, Experiments in Musical Intelligence, that could generate compelling works in the style of classical music composers. The subject of great controversy, EMI could compose Bach chorales, Mozart sonatas, and Chopin mazurkas at the stroke of a key, challenging audiences to reimagine what it means to be creative. Featuring excerpts from the completed opera, the algorithmic composer shares his lifelong findings on the nature of creativity.

Jae Shim is a Korean American filmmaker whose work traverses the worlds of art, cinema, and culture. He credits his first encounter with the groundbreaking work of David Cope, who famously pioneered machine creativity, to a Radiolab episode called Musical DNA. Jae resonated with Cope’s defiant spirit, challenging longstanding conventions of what classical music should look or sound like and he ultimately released his findings in his award-winning film Opus Cope: An Algorithmic Opera.