When Italian singer Andrea Bocelli performed with the Lucca Philharmonic Orchestra on Tuesday, he was not the center of attention in this performance. More of the audience’s attention was drawn to the dual-armed industrial robot YuMi, made by the famous ABB robotics company, which acted as conductor. And under the guidance of this conductor robot, the orchestra and Andrea Bocelli performed “The Heart of Beauties is apt to betray,” the famous aria from Giuseppe Verdi’s opera “Rigoletto.
YuMi’s transformation into a conductor robot is part of the First International Festival of Robotics, where the robot will later conduct in Pisa, Italy, where Maria Luigia Borsi will perform the aria “O mio babbino caro” from Giacomo Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi accompanied by the orchestra.
The famous conductor Andrea Colombini was in charge of teaching the YuMi robot. During the training, the robot carefully copied and memorized all the movements of a human conductor, and additional programming allowed the robot to use the memorized movements later to control the orchestra. RobotStudio specialized software was used to control the movements of the conductor robot and to synchronize it with the musical piece being played.
“Robots like YuMi are great when it comes to technique,” says Andrea Colombini, “But the spirit of a musical composition can only be set by a human being who puts his whole soul into it. Nevertheless, robot conductors can be used for the first rehearsals of orchestras, they can replace a human conductor in case of emergency, etc. But at concert performances the orchestra should always be controlled by a human.
