I loved the sense of exploration and innovation at SHIFT. There were so many positive examples of artists using AI ethically and responsibly. Paola Prestini’s opera Sensorium Ex was a standout, giving minimally verbal individuals a voice on the opera stage through AI systems that expand vocal expressivity.

Paola Prestini’s opera Sensorium Ex uses ‘custom-designed AI tools…to expand the expressive potential of voice for minimally verbal individuals.’ With a predominantly disabled cast, the opera explores the relationship between a mother and her nonverbal child, Kitsune. Jakob Jordan, performing Kitsune, spoke movingly about what it meant to be able to speak his part in a voice that was recognisably his own, with his own timbre and phrasing and inflections. This felt like the best of what can be achieved when move-fast-and-break-things technologies meet move-slowly-and-with-care-communities, centering humans and their needs to make the technology work for them, rather than the other way around.

"The theoretical becomes absolutely human in Paola Prestini and Brenda Shaughnessy’s Sensorium Ex – an opera whose key is technology, and that gives a voice to those whose disability prevents them from communicating directly or effectively…an impassioned performance from mezzo Hailey McAvoy, actor Jakob Jordan – himself a user of the tech – and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler)…the social implications are obvious, movingly illustrated both live and on film...""

I've never seen a performance that left me any more stunned... It's a definitive creation of a role women will be clamoring to play for decades.

It was a pleasure to read the final verse of the eight-part poem at the catacombs of the Green-Wood Cemetery as part of the live performance of composer Paola Prestini’s breathtaking record Houses of Zodiac with Paola’s partner Jeffrey Zeigler on transcendent cello.

The continually fascinating music proceeds...a breathtaking conclusion to a truly original event that took in the definitions of concert, dance, and theater.

An intoxicating and decidedly avant-garde soundscape — complex, often cryptic, and emotionally potent — that encourages listeners to meditate on the mysteries of life’s winding and murky journey and the inherent divinity of our humanity.

The opera titled "Sensorium Ex" is both art and advocacy, aimed at giving new voice and opportunities to the disabled, using A.I. to benefit, rather than harm, and changing the world of opera itself. "Sensorium Ex" is a new opera that is pushing boundaries by using AI to assist performers with disabilities.

A monumental disruption in the fusion of art and technology. [Sensorium Ex] fuses 3D sensing, artificial intelligence, disability solutions, operatic talent and artistic creativity to deliver a groundbreaking performance.

The musical composition wove together historical moments in a beautiful tapestry of unified force designed to intoxicate the mind...The message of this performance will echo along the human journey for generations to come!

Though 'Port(al)' was written for young singers, there was nothing toned-down or unsophisticated about it...'Port(al)' is an anti-war requiem

...exceptionally well written...Prestini is unafraid to take risks concerning the magnitude or moving parts of a production, and those risks certainly paid off for an inspiring performance of 'Port(al)'

a sprawling, ambitious, innovative new collaborative production

A beguiling blend of elements drawn from folk, contemporary classical and 18th-century Baroque music, combined with improvisatory passages, drones, jazz harmonic structures and live electronics.

This work is everything dreamed and imagined, produced and performed with utmost care, consciousness and soul. “Primero Sueño” lights the way forward for all.