Formant Brothers is a composition cooperative started by MIWA Masahiro (elder brother) and SAKONDA Nobuyasu (younger brother) in 2000. They have been focusing their interest on "voice and machine" and working with artificial voices generated in real time with their original formant synthesis system. Formant Brothers received an Honorary Mention in the Digital Music category of the 2009 Prix Ars Electronica for "Le Tombeau de Freddie / L'Internationale," a "Roku-gaku" (a term coined from the Japanese words for "record" and "music") work that examines the nature of music by having the "The Internationale" revolutionary anthem sung in Japanese by a rock star who has passed away.