Media scores provide a means to orchestrate multiple modalities in the creation of expressive works of art and performance. New technologies afford numerous opportunities to tell stories and create expressive artworks through a variety of media. Media scores extend the concept of a musical score to other modalities in order to facilitate the process of authoring and performing multimedia compositions, providing a medium through which to realize a modern-day Gesamtkunstwerk. Through research into the representation and the encoding of expressive intent, systems for composing with media scores are being developed. Using such a tool, the composer will be able to shape an artistic work that may be performed through human and technological means in a variety of media and utilizing various modalities of expression. Media scores offer the potential for authoring content considering live performance data and the potential for audience participation and interaction. This paradigm bridges the extremes of the continuum from composition to performance, allowing for improvisatory compositional acts at performance-time. The media score also provides a common point of reference in collaborative productions as well as the infrastructure for the real-time control of any technologies used during a live performance.