What happened
EMEAPP and the Museum of Music Technology in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, opened Instruments That Talk Back: Celebrating the Legacy of Don Buchla on September 19. The exhibition runs until April 17, 2027 and combines EMEAPP's collection with loaned pieces, among them a Buchla 100, 200-series systems, a Music Easel, Lightning Wands and the Marimba Lumina.
Many of the instruments are operational, so visitors can hear and play them rather than read about them. The show also includes one of the MEMS Project's reproductions of the EEG Conditioner, built after studying Buchla's original 276 prototype in EMEAPP's collection, which lets a visitor control a synthesizer with their brainwaves. Talks and workshops are free; Suzanne Ciani performs on November 11, with tickets at $50.
The interesting bit
Buchla instruments are usually met behind glass or in auction listings. Keeping them playable costs something—wear, repairs, someone standing nearby—and it is the right call for machines built on the idea that an electronic instrument should answer the hands rather than imitate a piano.
The dates are deliberate. April 17, 2027 would have been Don Buchla's 90th birthday, and the exhibition closes with an event marking it.