Did she not say she’d always love you? AI invokes Whitney Houston’s voice for new tour

Whitney Houston is embarking on a posthumous concert tour 13 years after her death, powered by artificial intelligence technology that isolates her vocals from original recordings. The tour, called “The Voice of Whitney: A Symphonic Celebration,” combines AI-extracted vocal tracks with live symphony orchestras and video footage, marking the 40th anniversary of Houston’s career launch.

Why this matters: Many of Houston’s original multitrack recordings had been lost over the years, making traditional tribute concerts impossible until AI technology advanced enough to separate vocals from fully mixed songs without compromising audio quality.

How the AI works: Park Avenue Artists, the production company behind the tour, partnered with Moises, an AI-powered music platform, to extract Houston’s vocals using sophisticated stem separation technology.

• “This project demanded exceptionally high-caliber stem separation,” Geraldo Ramos, Moises cofounder and CEO, said in a statement. “We had to isolate Whitney’s vocals from fully mixed recordings without compromising the emotional power of her performance. A concert like this simply wouldn’t have been possible five years ago.”
• Moises has developed 45 proprietary AI models that can process 2.5 million minutes of audio daily, with team members who previously worked at Spotify, Pandora, and TikTok.

In plain English: Think of it like digitally “unmixing” a cake back into its original ingredients—the AI can separate Whitney’s voice from the instruments, drums, and other sounds in a finished song, creating clean vocal tracks that can be paired with live orchestras.

Tour details: The concert series kicks off September 20 after a successful preview in Nashville this past June.

• September 20 and 21: Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Cincinnati Music Hall
• October 11: Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College, Wilmington, North Carolina
• October 25: Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Thousand Oaks, California
• November 8: Palladium at Allied Solutions Center, Carmel, Indiana
• November 15: Genesee Theatre, Waukegan, Illinois
• November 21: McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, California
• November 22: Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona
• Fans can expect classics like “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “I Will Always Love You,” and “Higher Love.”

What they’re saying: Industry executives see this as a template for future legacy artist collaborations using AI technology.

• “This project demonstrates how legacy artists and their estates can create meaningful experiences for music lovers through the thoughtful use of AI technology,” said Ross Michaels, copresident of Park Avenue Artists.
• “The Voice of Whitney is the first of several planned collaborations that will use AI to illuminate new dimensions of an artist’s work. It’s a powerful example of how AI can honor artists’ legacies while enriching the audience experience in beautiful and respectful ways.”

Previous attempts: This isn’t Houston’s first posthumous tour—in 2020, Base Hologram, a company specializing in legacy artist productions, created a holographic concert experience featuring the singer alongside a live band, similar to successful tours they’ve produced for Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Maria Callas.

The bigger picture: Posthumous performances remain controversial since most artists never consented to such productions, yet these shows are becoming increasingly prevalent as AI technology makes previously impossible recreations feasible.