Interactive Orchestra

Posted by jill on November 15, 2009

I stumbled across Re-rite on the South Bank over the weekend. A digital project by the Philharmonia Orchestra, it took place over four floors of an old warehouse just behind the Oxo Tower. In each room there was the projection of a section of an orchestra, and thesounds of their parts of The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. The set up was that the audience could wander amongst an orchestra, and hear each part of a complex orchestra piece. To make it seem even more realistic, they had the sheet music on a stand, and in one of the sections the audience filmed to be projected alongside the filmed footage.

As a way of engaging an audience, it really worked. Those of us inside the building were encouraged to wander into any room, and I found myself returning to several rooms throughout the piece. And being able to watch the musicians, the most fun was to watch them during the lengthy pauses to see how still they could be.

Perhaps those who planned the project took some of their inspiration from DVDs. There was a conductor’s commentary of the piece and also, in another room, a musician’s commentary. In the percussion room, maybe they even took some ideas from computer games, with a display that asked the audience to drum along.

Mixing in all these contemporary ideas, it was an excellent example of how to engage with a new audience, and explain some of the complexities of a classical orchestra.