Troy Rogers

Troy Rogers is a composer and instrument builder who firmly believes that if all goes extremely well, there is a nonzero chance for humanity to ultimately leave some skewed semblance of a lasting musical legacy for the robotic remnants of other failed planets. As a musical robot maker, he co-founded Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI), a group of composers dedicated to exploring and expanding the potential of robotic musical instruments. As a Fulbright scholar, he spent time at the Logos Foundation in Ghent, Belgium working with Godfried-Willem Raes and what is perhaps the world’s largest robot orchestra, where he developed a singing vocal robot, Stemmetje. Living the life of an early 21st century semi-nomadic robot herder, he resides in Duluth, MN when not touring the country in the RoboRig, a mobile platform for the development and dissemination of music for robots. He performs on streets and stages alike as Robot Rickshaw, an act that earned an Editors Choice Award at the 2015 Bay Area Maker Faire. Recognized with a Minnesota Emerging Composer Award by the American Composers Forum, he is currently at work on a new set of live music for his robot band, slated to be recorded by acclaimed Chicago producer Steve Albini later this year. Rogers is also a committed independent educator, regularly presenting lectures and offering Making Music with Robots and STEAM education workshops at universities, galleries, community art centers, makerspaces, and schools throughout the US.