Haptic Technology and Music: Andrew Yee and Conrad Tao in Conversation

On July 19 and 20th, The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra performs two free outdoor concerts in Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park incorporating Music: Not Impossible — wearable technology for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audience members. It is the first classical music orchestra presentation that will provide this technology to the public, in the US. Former Artist Propulsion Lab pianist Conrad Tao performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 and Still’s “Out of the Silence” from Seven Traceries, arranged for piano, flute, and strings. The evening closes with Tao and the orchestra performing Gershwin’s jazz-tinged Rhapsody in Blue. <br />Straight from the Artist Propulsion Lab comes a conversation with cellist, Andrew Yee and composer/pianist, Conrad Tao as they delve deep into the heartbeat of music and accessibility in the concert hall — wearable technology to feel sound. <br /><br /> <br />Andrew: It's really nice to see you. I feel like like our paths should have crossed more by this point, but they just haven't yet.<br />Conrad: I know. It's nice to have a conversation that's not like at the orbit of a show that we're happening to both be at or something. <br />Andrew: Exactly. So, when is this concert and what's special about this particular concert?<br />Conrad: [There are] two of them on July 19th and July 20th. It's very special to me because it'll be my first time playing with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. In fact, it will be my first time playing with an orchestra in New York City, which is my home, at least in several years. So that's always a lovely feeling and it's a free concert, which is maybe most exciting of all, at Damrosch Park.<br />Andrew: Can you talk about the Music Not Impossible wearables that are going to be at the concert?<br />Conrad: This concert is going to be making use of Music Not Impossible wearables — wearable technology for deaf and hard of hearing audience members. I believe [they] are attached to different parts of your body. It's been conceived as a full body experience with vi