Comusica is a participatory music experience that was unveiled as a centerpiece of the MIT virtual Commencement on May 29, 2020 at 1pm EDT.

To help foster the sense of community experienced during an on-campus commencement, Comusica features the voices of more than 800 MIT class of 2020 graduates and alumni, stitched together into one of the largest crowd-sourced pieces of music ever undertaken. The hundreds of video submissions were collected from students each singing a single note.

The creative team is made up of an amazing group of professors, students, and staff working to create something truly unique - and truly MIT - for Commencement. Eran Egozy '95, Professor of the Practice in Music Technology, conceived the project and was joined by Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music, who composed the music, and Isaac Chuang '90, Professor of EECS & Physics and Sr. Associate Dean, who built infrastructure and image-processing algorithms.

The resulting compilation into a complete song and video is a virtual gathering, an audio/video portrait that brings the class together in song and virtual proximity, culminating in a photomosaic of all the members of the MIT class of 2020.

Learn about the making of Comusica here.

Comusica is a collaboration by Music and Theater Arts, the Office of Open Learning, MIT Video Production, Resource Development, Arts at MIT, and the Opera of the Future research group at the Media Lab.

The Comusica team includes

• Eran Egozy (Music, Project Lead)
• Evan Ziporyn (Music, Composer of "Comusica: Chorale & Processional for Virtual Commencement")
• Isaac Chuang (Office of Open Learning, Infrastructure and Visual Media Algorithms)
• Nikhil Singh (Media Lab / Opera of the Future, Audio Technology)
• Larry Gallagher (MIT Video Production)
• Clayton Hainsworth (MIT Video Production, Video Director)
• Alex Sachs (MIT Video Production, Animator)
• Tom Stift (MIT Video Production, Animator)
• Joel Roston (Orchestration)
• Barbara Malec (Resource Development)
• Eric Keezer (Resource Development, UI/UX)
• Alex Mamel (Resource Development, Web Development)
• Leila Kinney (Arts at MIT)
• Leah Talatinian (Arts at MIT, Communications)
• Susan Wilson (Arts at MIT, Production)
• Special thanks to iZotope, Ben Bloomberg (Media Lab), and Sanjay Sarma (Office of Open Learning)

Read more in the Boston Globe