Wheels of Time Orchestra

Wheels of Time Orchestra is an independent orchestral and cross-genre music project founded in 2013 by composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist Roger Rivero, who directs and shapes the project's artistic vision alongside close musical collaborators. Rivero's original compositions, instrumental performances, lyrical concepts, orchestral arrangements, and sound design define the project's identity. Whenever artificial intelligence participates in the production process, it does so under carefully designed human creative protocols that constrain its role, preserving human authorship, aesthetic judgment, and compositional intent. Much of the project’s lyrical content draws from Rivero’s published poetry, translated and adapted into English. As a pioneer in technopoetics, Rivero’s work anticipated many of today’s debates surrounding artificial intelligence in creative fields, long before the current public discussion around generative AI. His poetic style—deeply influenced by Oliverio Girondo yet distinctly his own—anticipated many of the symbolic, aesthetic, and authorship questions that are now central to discussions about generative AI. His work was featured in Revista Iberoamericana, a renowned peer-reviewed academic publication founded in 1938, where it was associated with the figure of the “poetic humanoid” and the practice of “android creativity.” This academic recognition placed Rivero within the broader field of Ibero-American digital literature, reinforcing the lasting cultural and critical relevance of his work. He also received the Latin Heritage Foundation International Poetry Award and was included in an anthology of 21st-century Cuban poets translated into German. Reflecting on this vanguard artistic mission, Rivero once noted: “If AI-detection systems one day recognize traces of these new technologies in my work, it will confirm that I succeeded in exploring their artistic possibilities without surrendering human authorship, intention, or judgment.” Extending his literary vision into music, Wheels of Time Orchestra explores ambient / darkwave / symphonic rock / death metal / electronic styles / vintage genres such as 1920s swing. Since 2013, the project has produced concept-driven works that invite introspection, imagination, and dialogue between technology, memory, spirituality, and human emotion. Its creative foundations belong both to a time before the rise of generative AI and to the artistic possibilities that continue to emerge after it.