A computer is connected to a massive pipe organ and robot musicians takecontrol for the next 60 minutes –without human intervention. California-born composer Wayne Siegel (b. 1953) is a pioneer of computer-based music. In his work Celebration, the four manuals of the Hallgrímskirkja pipe organ in Reykjavík are controlled by four virtual musicians, all of them eager to express themselves individually but also programmed to perform together. Icelandic hymns and live-data from a weather satellite are interpreted by the virtual musicians playing the pipe organ, embedding human culture and the climate of our planet in everything they say.

Celebration may appeal to both pipe organ fans, robot engineers and meteorologists.

Wayne Siegel is a professor of electronic music at the Danish Institute of Electroacoustic Music (the Royal Academy of Music) in Aarhus, Denmark. He is considered a pioneer of computer-based music. Siegel’s music adheres to the aesthetics of American minimalism.