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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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BBC Proms

Music: Classical

2024

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The world's greatest classical music festival. Stunning performances, unique collaborations and the sheer joy of live music. Relive 2023's highlights before the new season begins.

BBC Proms: 2015 Season: Proms Interval

BBC Proms: 2015: Proms Interval: Episode 15: Singing Machines

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Will a Machine Ever Be Able to Sing?

Episode 15

Episode 15: Singing Machines

2015

Singing Machines

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2015, Proms Interval, Singing Machines

Trevor Cox asks if technology will ever match the human voice.

Professor Trevor Cox asks if technology will ever match the human voice and allow a machine to sing.

Will a machine ever be able to sing? Professor Trevor Cox asks if technology will ever match the human voice.

Attempts to develop a machine that can sing date back to Wolfgang von Kempelen's Speaking Machine of 1769, which was a physical model of the vocal tract. Trevor goes to York University to see if David Howard can get von Kempelen's Machine to sing.

There were further attempts to create singing mechanical or electrical machines that could sing, but it was only with the development of computer technology that a lifelike singing machine became possible.

In the early 1990s a computer model of the physics of the human vocal tract performed Nessun Dorma - the machine was called Pavarobotti. Trevor talks to Pavarobotti's inventor, Ingo Titze.

In the early 21st century, samples of a real singer were used to create a library of sounds which can be pieced together to create the impression of a real person singing opera. Trevor speaks to the music journalist Kate Hutchinson about how this technology has developed in a surprising way, and has taken on a new life of its own.

BBC Proms: 2015

BBC Proms: 2015: Proms Interval

Proms Interval

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

All broadcasts from the 121st season of the BBC Proms.

Feature series accompanying concerts in the 2015 Proms season

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Proms Interval

Episode 15: Singing Machines

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