Sydney Symphony Illuminates Sails of the Sydney Opera House in VISIONS OF VIENNA

In a landmark cultural event, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra tonight performed to thousands of people around the Sydney Harbour foreshore and across the world when its sold-out concert Greatest Hits from Vienna inside the Sydney Opera House was projected live onto the sails of the iconic building.

As it performed inside the Concert Hall, the SSO became the first professional orchestral ensemble to feature in live real-time video projections on the sails. The spectacle on the sails was broadcast across the globe in a live web-stream at visions.vienna.info and on the Sydney Symphony Orchestra YouTube channel.

Presented by the Vienna Tourist Board, Visions of Vienna was a multimedia event celebrating the rich artistic heritage of Vienna. Accompanying the projections of the Orchestra were images inspired by the art of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, as well as the pages of the original score of By the Beautiful Blue Danube waltz by J STRAUSS II and impressions of Vienna - often referred as the "World Capital of Music".

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Managing Director Rory Jeffes said the "awe-inspiring" real-time projections presented the Orchestra to the world like never before and celebrated Vienna's musical history.

"It was just extraordinary to see the towering figures of our players on the sails of Sydney Opera House as they played inside the Concert Hall," Mr Jeffes said. "We were immensely proud to share this experience with the world through the live-stream on YouTube."

"This project was a true cross-city cultural collaboration, celebrating Vienna's contribution to our art-form. We thank the Vienna Tourist Board for presenting this event and thank the Austrian National Tourist Office for its continued support of the SSO," he added.

Vienna Tourist Board Managing Director Norbert Kettner said: "In Vienna, we are very aware of our enormous musical heritage and constantly develop new forms of presenting and celebrating it. With this world premiere of Visions of Vienna, we managed to find a completely new and highly innovative way of doing so."

Visions of Vienna commenced at 8.30pm, with 3D projections on the sails inspired by Vienna's culture of acoustic and visual art.

At 9pm the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was projected live in concert on to the sails, performing the second half of Greatest Hits from Vienna, a concert in the spirit of the traditional Viennese New Year's Day concert.

Greatest Hits from Vienna was led by Vienna-based conductor Ola Rudner and featured Viennese soprano Elisabeth Flechl as soloist in a program of classics, operetta, and dance musical favourites by great composers such as Johann Strauss Jr. II, Lehar, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven.

Tony David Cray, Head of Recording and Broadcast at the Sydney Opera House, used 14 cameras inside the Concert Hall - including five lipstick cameras inside the Orchestra - to film the performance, which was projected live on the sails by Technical Direction Company.

Award-winning design agency Ample Projects, which created the Urban Tree Project for Vivid 2014, created the Viennese imagery for the sails.

More than 3000 people attended a free public event hosted by the Vienna Tourist Board at Campbells Cove in the Rocks to watch the spectacle on the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

Visions of Vienna was live-streamed on YouTube from 8.50pm AEDT and can be viewed on-demand at http://youtu.be/A99kUmqaLpM and visions.vienna.info.

To see more images of the event, visit Instagram and search #VisionsOfVienna and #SSOvienna. Footage and images for editorial use can be found at http://bit.ly/1vsjpwC.

Photo Credit: Ken Butti, 2015

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