Mozart gets a digital makeover

New York City’s 2006 Mostly Mozart Festival on Thursday night unveiled an outdoor artwork that uses artificial intelligence in a visual and aural play of the composer’s last symphony -- the “Jupiter.” In a city that never sleeps, it’s a 24-hour-a-day performance for the duration of the monthlong festival that marks the 250th anniversary year of the composer’s birth.

The 40th annual festival officially opens Tuesday but unofficially began by turning on the 198-foot-wide digital installation to illuminate the facade of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

“Enlightenment” was commissioned from artists Marc Downie, Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar, with help from Columbia University’s Computer Music Center. Louis Langree, Mostly Mozart’s music director, supervised the musical process.

The aim is to link Mozart’s Age of Enlightenment to our Information Age by using artificial intelligence to interpret the final 30 seconds of his last symphony -- an intricate fugue that plays around with five themes.

The artists spread their multicolored creation across 10 high-resolution screens with speakers. In the interplay between sound and image, Mozart’s music is taken apart, with computers searching for the right sequence of notes that was recorded by real musicians -- before reconstructing the final, perfect end to the masterwork. Each 25-minute performance is different.

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FINALLY

Canceled: After just two low-rated outings, ABC has canceled “The One: Making a Music Star.”