And the Band Played On – Technology Review article

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
September/October 2011

By Jeniffer Chu

The T station at Kendall/MIT fills with the screech of an approaching train. As the doors open, riders spill onto the platform, and a small girl runs straight for a long silver lever mounted on the station wall. She pushes and pulls on the handle with a frenzy.

“You need to go slow,” says her mother. “You’ve forgotten—we haven’t done this in a while.”

At her mother’s suggestion, the girl slowly works the lever back and forth, and large mallets, suspended above the tracks, respond by swinging between heavy aluminum pipes. As the mallets make contact, the echoes of the departing train are replaced by the deep, mellow sound of bells.  MORE….

Photos from April 30th celebration of Pythagoras

Pythagoras returned

Cambridge Chronicle photos and article on April 30th celebration

Photos and Article in the Cambridge Chronicle about the April 30th celebration of the Pythagoras restoration.

Kendall Band Plaques INSTALLED

Hear the Kendall Band 2pm, 4/30

Pythagoras plays again

http://www2.lns.mit.edu/~gsfs/PythagorasReturns.mov

Kendall Band on All things Considered

Musical Artwork At Kendall T Station Will Soon Ring Again

http://www.wbur.org/2011/04/20/kendall-music-sculpture

All things Considered
by Sacha Pfeiffer
April 20, 2o11, 6:45pm

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — If you’ve ever boarded the Red Line at Kendall Square, you may be familiar with the interactive musical sculpture that has hung over the tracks for years.

It’s an elaborate system of pipes, mallets and hammers connected to a network of rods, cables and gears, and it’s called the Kendall Band.

“It makes waiting for the T a lot more fun,” says Alessondra Springmann, a 25-year-old grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I used to really enjoy showing up at Kendall five minutes before the train would show up and just playing the bells. You swing a lever back and forth and these pendulums swing, and you can produce really cool music while you’re waiting for the T.”

Springmann says that from the first time she stepped foot on the Kendall train platform, she was struck by how the sculpture brings people together.

Cambridge Chronicle- Wicked Local

MIT students put Kendall ‘band’ back together

Apr 11, 2011 @ 10:59 AM

MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo reports: “In the wee hours of Sunday morning, MIT students and staff began the re-installation of the “Band” pieces at Kendall Station. It went well…as they were able to re-install the main piece, Pythagoras. They will re-install the control equipment on the platforms in the coming days. They also plan to re-furbish the other (smaller) pieces on-site.”

Courtesy photo

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, MIT students and staff began the re-installation of the “Band” pieces at Kendall Station.

Pythagoras returned to the Kendall T station

Pythagoras is back, bells and pendulums all hanging and looking pretty in their new clean aluminum finish.  But the bells are not functioning yet.  They will be in operation on April 30th for the re-installation celebration taking place at 2pm.  This was planned to coincide with the MIT 150th Anniversary Campus Wide Open House.