More love from the New York Times this weekend as Knight grantee Tod Machover is the subject of a story about his work developing a new symphony in collaboration with the people of Edinburgh, Scotland.  Fresh off the Toronto Symphony, he is getting ready to debut “Festival City” at the Edinburgh Festival.

As the Times’ Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote: “The piece weaves in city sounds and quotations from the classical works most often performed at the Edinburgh International Festival over the years. Playful, inclusive and driven by a delight in the creative possibilities of computers, it well represents Mr. Machover’s work.”

Tod, a founding faculty member at the MIT Media Lab, received funding to create “The Other Festival,” a new “anti-disciplinary” art and design event involving works that defy categories and help push the boundaries of technology and public participation in cultural offerings.

I’m headed over to the see the debut at Edinburgh and will report back. We think this idea of engaging the community in the creation of a crowdsourced work has a lot of promise. Stay tuned for an idea Tod and I have been working on!

By Dennis Scholl, vice president of Arts at Knight Foundation