Flickr Fun: Sirens and Robotic Pianos

Launching us into the weekend are some fabulously fun Flickr finds, forwarded by fine folks and friends:

Pheezy (aka Evan Cordes) got a look at the sirens, automated pianos and drums, and other mechanical musical wonders on display at the National Gallery’s installation of Ballet Mechanique, as seen here previously. He took some photos of the instruments up-close:

Ballet Mechanique Photo Set

It’s great to see this kind of acoustic technology married to modern digital tech. Evan says, “Antheil’s spirit was definitely present.”

See our previous story on how the whole thing was done, controlled by a Mac running

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L.A. King

I went and saw this thing and it was AMAZING! I wish I would have had a portable recorder with me at the time. Does anyone know if there is an audio recording of any performance of this piece of music?

May 14, 2006 @ 8:49 am
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Peter Kirn

There are excerpts if you click through to the previous link. It’d be great if they made a finished recording of this version, though.

May 14, 2006 @ 9:56 am
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