A South Korean-made robot made its conductor’s debut in Seoul on Friday, wowing the audience with a flawless performance.
“EveR 6”, a 1.8-meter-tall android, led more than 60 musicians from the South Korean National Orchestra who played various traditional instruments.
“EveR 6” he was able to guide the performers both independently and in collaboration with a human conductor by his side for nearly half an hour, drawing awe from the more than 950 concertgoers, staged at the National Theater of Korea.
The robot was widely applauded when it appeared on stage, when it greeted the audience with a bow.
During the performance, her blue eyes would focus on the musicians, only nodding her head in rhythm with the melody.
The rookie offered a good performance, assured some of the attendees.
“I came here worried that the robot could do it,” Kim Ji-min, a 19-year-old college student majoring in music, told AFP.
“But I found that I was in great harmony with the musicians… It felt like a whole new world to me,” he said.
While there have been musical performances by robotic conductors in the past, including a 2017 concert conducted by the robot YuMi in Italy, this was the first time South Koreans had been able to see one on stage.
“EveR 6”developed by the state company Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, was programmed to replicate the movements of a human using motion capture technology.
At the moment, however, he is not able to listen or improvise in real time.
Its developers are currently working on allowing the robot to make gestures that are not pre-programmed, explained Lee Dong-wook, the robot’s engineer.