DIRECTOR

Edoardo Taori, (Subiaco (RM), 21 September 1985), is an Italian musicologist, performer and entrepreneur, best known for being the creator and founder of Plants Play, the start-up company that produces the same electronic biofeedback device with a smartphone app, which uses two sensors placed on the leaves or trunk of trees and plants to translate their bioelectric signals into music. 

He is also the director of the Plants Play Orchestra, an ensemble in which plants play live along with human musicians, fusing technology, botany and the art of music.

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BIOGRAPHY

Edoardo Taori lived until 2004 in Arcinazzo Romano (RM) with his birth family. During his childhood, he became passionate about studying science subjects and the sport of competitive road cycling. He competed from the age of 6 to 18 with the Pier Giorgio Frassati polysportiva, up to the Juniores category. At the age of 11, he began taking private guitar lessons, and at 13 he joined the choir of the Santa Maria Assunta parish in Arcinazzo Romano (RM) as a guitarist. During his teenage years, he founded various Hard Rock and Heavy Metal bands as lead guitarist and singer. After graduating from the Liceo Scientifico “Braschi” in Subiaco (RM), he moved to Rome to undertake scientific music studies.

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During his years in Rome, he graduated from the University of Tor Vergata, in the faculty of SSTMS (History, Science and Technique of Music and Entertainment), also integrating exams in Telecommunication Engineering and Sound Science, which completed his academic career in sound science. To support himself during his studies, he worked as a salesman at Decathlon Italia “Tor Vergata”, and later as an assistant manager at Sony Italia, selling technological products.

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Between 2007 and 2012, he met Emanuele Boria in the university environment, with whom he founded the electronic music label Sostanze Records, one of the first Italian NetLabels. The label seeks to create an alternative model to counter the exploitation of artists by large streaming companies by organising events where its artists can perform and be well paid. While all the music produced is downloadable for free on the label's website, in order to make artists' productions run faster and increase their visibility, making them viral. Edoardo Taori himself, under the pseudonym IlKobra, releases several albums in the electronic Drum and Bass / Electro / DubStep genres and is in charge of the artistic direction of the 2020 Indie Festival and many other live events on the Roman music scene.

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In 2012 he left Rome, moved to a country house in Salento and started the Contrada Lusci project, based on Permaculture principles, with Federica Zizzari. The project aims to experience a life as sustainable as possible, self-sufficient and in contact with nature. The heart of the project is synergistic agriculture and practices for zero impact living, such as: the creation of natural soaps and toothpastes, the use of photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, solar dishes to channel the sun's heat for cooking, and the recycling of rainwater to irrigate the fields. The project seeks to be as usable as possible and open to sharing knowledge with people from all over the world, through the mechanism of the “wwoof”, i.e. hospitality, room and board, in exchange for work.

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Between 2014 and 2016, the Plants Play project was born. Edoardo Taori builds the first biofeedback prototypes for detecting and converting the electrical signals of plants into music. He began a series of crowdfunded trips to record the music of extraordinary trees and plants around the world. From this travel experience, the book series "Nel Canto degli Alberi, India del Nord e Nepal" and the documentary "L'albero del Drago ed il respiro della Laurisilva" filmed in the Canary Islands and the respective music albums were born.

In 2016, Edoardo Taori founds the start-up Plants Play and creates the first research and development team, consisting of computer and electronic engineers, designers and botanists to create the first portable biofeedback device for plants, with bluetooth connection to its smartphone app (iOS / Android). It finances the production of the first devices with an international crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and puts the first units on the market the following year.

Between 2023 and 2024, a new phase of research and development begins with the new Plants Play Team, which makes improvements to the device hardware and the Plants Play 2 app, which is still on the market.

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After years of artistic experimentation with plant music, in concerts, art installations, lectures and interactive dinners, Edoardo Taori decided to found the Plants Play Orchestra in 2018, an ensemble in which plants play live along with human musicians, merging technology, botany and the art of music.

In 2019, he conducted the Plants Play Orchestra during the show Metamorfosi, staged in Italian theatres, with Enrico Lo Verso and directed by Alessandra Pizzi, where the soundtrack is written in real time by plants.

In the following years, the Plants Play Orchestra, collaborated in live shows with numerous artists, including Pietro Morello, Andy Bluvertigo, Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil), Tormento (Sottotono), Saturnino, Malika Ayane and many others. In 2023, Edoardo Taori collaborates with Dario Faini aka Dardust, on the opening performance ‘The Blooming Symphony’ of the Sanremo Festival 2023, at the Forte di Santa Tecla. In 2025, he also realised an art installation for Amazon Music at the Sanremo Festival.