In 1967, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band redefined what it meant to make a record album. The Beatles revolutionized the recording process using technology to achieve completely unprecedented sounds and arrangements. Until then, popular music recordings were simply faithful reproductions of a live performance. Over the past fifty years, recording and production techniques have advanced so far that another challenge has arisen: it is now very difficult for performing artists to give a live performance that has the same impact, complexity and nuance as a produced studio recording. Today, live performance production technology is used almost exclusively to recreate studio albums exactly as they were recorded, with this approach dominating the entertainment industry. Sadly, in an attempt to reach superhuman levels of perfection and complexity, many elements that make live performance a truly unique experience, meaningful to both audiences and artists, are given less priority or lost altogether.

My mission is to reverse this trend by creating new methods of integrating technology and live music performance — retaining flexible musical expression, audience connection and exciting, sophisticated and “magical” production values. By exploring and creating with brilliant artists, composers, performers, designers, technologists, and inventors, we have shown and continue to show that it is possible to combine astonishing production with truly music-led performance.