By Andrea Shea

He’s created a “Brain Opera,” an opera starring robots, another inspired by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick's novel "VALIS," and now, visionary composer Tod Machover is unleashing his latest marriage of technology and tradition. “Schoenberg in Hollywood” premieres Wednesday night at the the Paramount Center at Emerson College in Boston.

It’s been a long journey from Machover’s expansive imagination to the stage.

This new piece, which he’s been dreaming about making for two decades, has all the essentials you expect from an opera: the singers, the musicians, the sets. But for the composer and his team, it also represents the art form's ongoing evolution.