On Friday night in Seoul, EveR 6, an android robot, conducted South Korea’s national orchestra for the first time.
The National Theater of Korea premiered the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology’s two-armed robot, leading the national orchestra.
The humanoid robot bowed to the audience and waved its arms to control the live event.
“Movements by a conductor are very detailed,” said Choi Soo-yeoul, who led Friday’s performance with the robot.
“The robot was able to present such detailed moves much better than I had imagined.”
Choi stated EveR 6’s “critical weakness” is not listening.
Lee Young-Ju, an audience member who studies traditional Korean music, said the robot’s actions perfectly preserved the rhythm but lacked “breath,” or the capacity to keep the orchestra ready to participate collectively and instantaneously, which was vital in performance.
“It seemed there was some work to be done for the robot to do the job,” Lee remarked.
Another viewer, Song In-ho, 62, felt EveR 6’s performance was rudimentary.
“I guess it would be able to do the conducting all by itself when it’s equipped with artificial intelligence to understand and analyse the music,” Song added.
On Friday evening, the humanoid robot guided three of five pieces, including one with Choi.
“It was a recital that showed that (robots and humans) can co-exist and complement each other, rather than one replacing the other,” Choi remarked after the concert.