New World Symphony To Perform MUSIC IN (TECHNI)COLOR Concert With Stéphane Denève

New World Symphony will perform a technologically enhanced program at New World Center on Saturday March 1 and Sunday March 2, 2025, with the March 1 performance also being a WALLCAST® Concert and free live stream online via NWS Inside.

The concert features Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the East Coast premiere of Anna Clyne’s PALETTE, and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, each showcasing a digital element that displays the evolution of NWS’s signature technological exploration within the New World Center’s Knight New Media Center.

As a laboratory for the way music is taught, presented and experienced, NWS first performed Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition–a work inspired by a visit to an art exhibit by the composer’s friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann–with commissioned animations as part of the opening festivities of New World Center in January 2011. The project showcased the unprecedented versatility of the new concert hall. In a collaboration between New World Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas and the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, 13 student, alumni, and faculty filmmakers created short films that accompanied the orchestra. Tilson Thomas, a USC alumnus and NWS co-founder, who was Artistic Director at the time said “In the back of my mind was the vision of a performance that might merge orchestral virtuosity, lighting, design, and film.” The 2011 performance marked the first digital immersion experience at the Frank Gehry-designed venue. Now, Stéphane Denève revives the program, utilizing AI to enhance the resolution and build upon the foundation that ushered New World Symphony into the digital age, continuing a tradition of digitally-forward experiences that have transformed the concert-going experience.

The program continues with Denève leading the New World Symphony in the East Coast premiere of PALETTE, a new concerto for Augmented Orchestra by composer Anna Clyne. A 35-minute virtuosic showpiece for the entire orchestra, PALETTE explores the intersection of color, light, and music, reflecting Clyne’s deep interest in the dialogue between music and other forms of media and art—an interest shared by Denève. Clyne crafted each of the piece’s movements in conjunction with one of seven paintings she created, and the mood and emotions evoked by each. The piece’s title, PALETTE, is an acronym for the primary color used in one of each of the seven paintings—Plum, Amber, Lava, Ebony, Teal, Tangerine, and Emerald. Digital renderings of Clyne’s paintings will accompany the performance and be projected onto the concert hall’s five curvilinear, acoustically reflective “sails” that span the upper half of the performance space and wrap around the audience and the stage.

The performance will feature the use of the Augmented Orchestra (AO), a sonic technique developed by Clyne and Jody Elff, the Grammy Award-winning audio engineer, sound artist, and designer. AO manipulates the sounds produced by the orchestra in real-time by computer-controlled processes, creating an augmented sonic experience perceived as a natural extension of the orchestra and a fundamental component of the composition. PALETTE is the third of Clyne’s compositions to utilize AO and will receive its world premiere by Denève and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra on Friday, February 14, and Saturday, February 15. To learn more about PALETTE and the Augmented Orchestra, please read Symphony Magazine’s story Discovering New Orchestral Soundscapes.

The evening opens with Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, a beloved piano suite originally composed in 1910 as a children's ballet, inspired by fairy tales, including Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, and Beauty and the Beast. The whimsical piece will be brought to life with live animations from the stage by artist Grégoire Pont.

NWS WALLCAST® concerts bring audiences of all ages to SoundScape Park to enjoy live classical music broadcast straight from the stage to the 7,000-square-foot exterior projection wall of the New World Center through stunning audio and visual technology. WALLCAST® and Mobile WALLCAST® concerts are free to the public and are made possible with support from Premier Sponsor The Dr. M. Lee Pearce Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Hitachi and Knight Foundation.

NWS Inside is a free digital membership program that includes access to unforgettable concerts with thrilling close-up views and bonus content all season long. More information at nws.edu/inside.

Denève: Music in (Techni)Color

March 1, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.

*WALLCAST® Concert
Live stream via NWS Inside

March 2, 2025 at 2:00 p.m.

Stéphane Denève, conductor

Maurice Ravel:  Mother Goose Suite

Anna Clyne:  PALETTE: Concerto for Augmented Orchestra (East Coast premiere; NWS co-commission)

Modest Mussorgsky / arr. Maurice Ravel:  Pictures at an Exhibition

The NWS Fellowship Experience

The New World Symphony is a global leader in orchestral and artistic training. Talented musicians, aged typically between 22-30, are awarded three-year fellowships that consist of a robust curriculum of musical, entrepreneurial and community engagement training. Each season, Fellows are mentored by over 250 visiting faculty members and guest artists, and design and execute their own entrepreneurial projects. Fellows in various stages of their three-year fellowship make up the orchestra each season. NWS has nearly 1,300 alumni transforming communities in over 30 countries.

Eighty-seven Fellows comprise the 2024-25 class at New World Symphony across 17 instruments and three non-instrumental positions. The Fellows are selected for this highly competitive opportunity based on their musical achievement and promise, as well as their passion for the future of classical music.

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