A symphony which starts before the audience gets to the concert hall

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra is set to present the premiere of Huang Ruo’s City of Floating Sounds on 6 - 8 June. As audience members approach Manchester’s Aviva Studios, where the performance will take place, individual layers of the new work will play on their phones, combining with each concertgoer they cross paths with.

The audience will then hear the new symphony performed live by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gemma New ahead of performances at New York’s Lincoln Center (23 and 24 July). No two performances will be the same, as each audience member is invited to connect with their surroundings and each other in new ways.

Ruo said: ‘City of Floating Sounds is a symphony, a public performance art, an interactive live-installation, a relaxed walk in the city and a piece of music theatre involving and for the city and its people. Its hundreds of streams flowing into one river, while audiences journey towards Aviva Studios from different directions, the kinetic sonic fragments carried by them will eventually converge into a symphonic sea. This work breaks down barriers of performer and audience, stage and the four walls and brings awareness of the uncontrollable pacing of urbanisation and its consumption of nature.’

The new work is produced by Factory International and is a co-commission with National Taichung Theater, Taiwan and Lincoln Center, New York. Audiences will be able to use a new app developed by immersive listening experience experts ECHOES to listen to one of 11 soundtracks from the symphony, recorded by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. As they cross paths with other concertgoers, the sounds will build to create a fuller ensemble. The live performance at Aviva Studios’ Warehouse will then see the audience surrounded by the orchestra and free to walk among the musicians.

Factory International artistic director and chief executive John McGrath said: ‘Huang Ruo’s City of Floating Sounds grows out of many years of conversations about our new space Aviva Studios and the role music can play in bringing a new place into being. Like much of Factory International’s work, and like many of Huang Ruo’s extraordinary projects, it is joyfully interdisciplinary, and grows from an intimate journey to an epic immersive experience. It has been a great pleasure to collaborate in this way with such a bold and talented composer.’