Despite what you may feel about technology and its advancements, the idea of an immersive experience using VR in the world of classical music is already possible.
One of the most exciting experiences I have discovered is an initiative from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra they call Future Presence. You’ll need to sport a VR headset and headphones to gain the full insight that is the collaboration between the orchestra and Henrick Oppermann.
How Will Virtual Reality Shape Classical Music?
Oppermann has an impressive resume. He has developed over one hundred immersive projects that capture 3D audio. The technology he uses is cutting-edge and can record sound from different angles at the very highest quality.
This is then used to create a completely immersive experience that allows the user to get inside the orchestra. It means you can move between players or sections of the orchestra, including the conductor, hearing the piece from a totally new perspective.
It brings a whole new meaning to up close and personal; however, this opens the doors to being part of a performance in ways that would not have been possible before.
Philharmonia Orchestra and VR Experiences
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Philharmonia is a self-governing orchestra founded in 1945 and has made some of the most celebrated recordings of classical repertoire under many of the most famous conductors in the world.
Alongside their impressive schedule of concerts across the world, Philharmonia offers their own immersive experience. As far back as 2014, the orchestra began to explore the possibilities of VR and today offers several different experiences.
These include the 360-degree orchestra playing Mahler’s 3rd Symphony and Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.
Philharmonia has even released an app on the PlayStation called The Virtual Orchestra, which has been highly popular. Similarly to Future Presence, Philharmonia has developed their walk-through VR experience too.
This is achieved as a movable installation they describe as Universe of Sound, transforming a performance of Holst’s The Planets into a ten-room exhibition that can fill an entire building or gallery space.
The concept is essentially the same, with the VR visitor granted the ghost-like facility to glide through the orchestra and hear them from the inside out. Before the Holst experience, Philharmonia managed to bring a similar VR experience to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring to around 300,000 people.
Alongside these projects, Philharmonia is continuing to explore VR, Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) with several leading universities and technological companies.
One exciting extension is the idea of bringing these experiences to an audience worldwide, in real-time, possibly including several staged performances. It seems that the further into the world of VR you travel, the more enlightening and inspired the options become.
Artistic Perspectives on VR
For some, the 360-degree orchestra or a visit to the very inside of each orchestral instrument during a performance is nothing more than a clever gimmick. Perhaps it’s a bandwagon that is already overcrowded with other more challenging options not fully explored.
For composer and director Michel van de Aa, the integration of emerging technologies into a musical scenario is second nature. His virtual reality installation titled Eight from 2018-2019 uses a mezzo-soprano, child soprano, a small choir, and an actress to create this immersive experience.
Konzerthaus Initiatives
Eight centres on singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke and the VR company The Virtual Dutch Men. Together they have created a musical theatre piece that fully incorporates VR.
As you begin the journey with headset and headphones, you chart your way through the life of an old woman who is the first person you see. Her memories are interactive through flexible walls that you select.
Musically, the score is derived from an album by Michel van de Aa called Time Falling (2020). Stylistically, the score aligns closely with the world of popular culture.
According to their website, the Konzerthaus in Berlin has been actively engaging with immersive technology since 2015. Some of these initiatives have been in conjunction with the University of Applied Sciences.
One of the most popular and innovative options available from the Konzerthaus is the virtual quartet. The premise is simple. Players of the string quartet appear like playing cards that can be selected and heard individually or as a quartet. It’s a fantastic learning tool aimed at schools.
A further project at the Konzerthaus that I find particularly interesting is one developed by composer Mark Barden and visual artist Julian Bonequi. The project is called Environments.
What you can experience is a virtual walk through the musical score that arrives to you as a richly colorful surreal landscape. You interact with the landscape, activating sounds as you make your journey.
It allows you to experience music in a similar way to the concert performances, from the inside out, but also allows you control of the experience, creating it as you wish.
VR and Gaming Integration
A natural progression of virtual reality is into gaming. Whilst many people may be delighted to travel through and around an orchestra enjoying music literally from numerous different angles, others might prefer a different interaction.
Here is where classical music and the gaming world collide, bursting into a new realm of exciting possibilities. Maestro VR is one example of this type of game. The game offers many enticements.
You can, for instance, conduct music from different eras, customize your orchestra, and even win new conducting batons as you progress through the game.
The sound is presented as 3D surround and offers the gamer a fully absorbing experience. It offers you the option to share your work with others on the platform (available through Steam), or if you’ve had enough of conducting, sit back and become an audience member.
This participatory element of the game has already proved to be highly popular. It has its critics but does have the potential to lead a new audience into classical music in an active way.
The future possibilities, as the technology develops, are almost endless, and this game will doubtless spawn others that push the boundaries even further.