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TK and the media computing group at RWTH Aachen (MC) jointly developed a new version of their Personal Orchestra exhibit at the Vienna House of Music. Personal Orchestra has been a major attraction at this highly frequented museum since almost ten years, offering visitors a conductor's podium where they can explore their talent with the famous Vienna Philharmonics. Despite the fact that this world renowned orchestra plays off a large video screen, the magic conducting baton puts visitors in control of velocity, loudness, and even instrument balance. Controlling music velocity in real-time is a major scientific challenge 'hidden' in the exhibit; further scientific research was needed for automatic recognition of conducting gestures, unobtrusive user interfaces, and smooth video play-out of audio-synchronous high-definition video at arbitrary speed. Dedicated recordings with the Vienna Philharmonics were needed - including scenes where orchestra members criticize the conductor. The year 2000 standard-definition version has now been replaced by a high-definition variant, with the 16fold increased data rate pushing even a bold eight-core Apple MacIntosh computer to its very limits. Apart from this and many other improvements, the new exhibit features an electronic music stand developed by TK researcher Hadjakos: on an embedded LCD screen, the conductor-wannabe can now see the complex orchestra music score that is the work basis for any orchestra director. To make things easier, a moving, highlighted marker bar automatically indicates the note column actually conducted and played – a seemingly simple idea requiring sophisticated protocol and software development since the notes and bar must be tightly synchronized with the overall exhibit. Further assets of our new amendment comprise automatic page-turning (an elegant 3D animation) and additional highlighting of accentuated instrument groups.

The old exhibit had excited over 1.5M visitors from all over the world. Thus it was no surprise that the opening of our new version on Nov. 27, 2009 was welcome by international press and Austrian TV. In the evening TV news alone, about 1.5M viewers witnessed the ceremony under the auspices of the director of the Vienna Philharmonics, Prof. Hellsberg, in the presence of House-of-Music director Posch and the heads of TK and MC, Prof. Mühlhäuser and Prof. Borchers, together with their researchers.