EveR 6: Android robot conducts national orchestra of South Korea

An android robot has conducted South Korea's national orchestra for the very first time in the country's history.

The two-armed robot, named EveR 6, took to the conductor's podium and guided more than 60 musicians in front of a live audience.

Nearly 1,000 people turned up at the National Theater of Korea to watch the orchestra, who were playing traditional Korean instruments.

The robot, even bowed to the audience before starting to waving its arms to control the tempo of the performance!

What's happened?

EveR 6 was developed by scientists at the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology and was programmed to replicate the movements of a human conductor through motion capture technology.

The humanoid robot guided three of five pieces that were played by the orchestra, including one jointly lead alongside a human conductor, Choi Soo-yeoul.

And it seems both Choi Soo-yeoul and the audience were impressed by EveR 6's performance.

Choi Soo-yeoul said: "Movements by a conductor are very detailed. The robot was able to present such detailed moves, much better than I had imagined.

"I think it was a recital that showed that (robots and humans) can co-exist and complement each other, rather than one replacing the other," he added.

However there did seem to be one big disadvantage of having a robot conductor.

Choi Soo-yeoul explained: "EveR 6's critical weakness is that it cannot listen.

What was a bit interesting during the rehearsal was that me and other musicians were making a lot of efforts to understand the robot as we knew it could not listen, which made us feel like we were connecting to it."