Augmented Reality Visual Listening Guide makes world debut at Verbier Festival 2023

This summer, the Visual Listening Guide returned for the third time to the Verbier Festival, as part of its 30th Anniversary edition! At the invitation of UNLTD, the Festival’s “creative lab” that seeks to “shake up how we experience music by sparking curiosity and connecting generations,” I reprised my role as Musicologist-in-Residence.

My duties included presenting in pre-concert talks several Visual Listening Guides—to Brahms’s Symphony No. 3, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and Mozart’s Symphony No. 40. These Guides were distributed to concert attendees, in print and digital formats during and after concerts, for their personal use.

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Stills from an UNLTD video of my ideaLAB presentation on the AR Visual Listening Guide at Verbier’s SHED Hotel.

The Visual Listening Guide as printed brochures distributed at the 2023 Verbier Festival.

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As part of UNLTD’s ideaLAB series, on July 25th, I was thrilled to reveal for the very first time the Augmented Reality Visual Listening Guide to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony!

Using an app powered by Immersive Publishing Ltd, the Visual Listening Guide’s printed pages are brought to life with audio excerpts from the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra's own recording (recently released on Deutsche Grammophon), plus digital content including text panels, images, and videos featuring VFCO Music Director Gábor Takács-Nagy and music historian Jan Swafford as well as the Orchestra’s musicians.

The AR Visual Listening Guide was received with warmth and engaged curiosity by the large audience in attendance who were the first to try out the app with the Guide. I’m grateful for the positive and constructive feedback I’ve so far received. The Beethoven Symphony No. 5 Visual Listening Guide and app will continue to be distributed to Verbier Festival-goers as an educational resource.

A big THANK YOU! to UNLTD powered by Verbier Festival and my AR partner Immersive Publishing for this initial opportunity to realize the AR Visual Listening Guide! I’m very excited about the possibilities of this audience engagement/educational tool.

Orchestras interested in adopting the AR Visual Listening Guide for their audiences can learn more here.

2022 Spring Highlight: Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra presents Visual Listening Guides at two Spring concerts

In Spring 2022, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra became the third Canadian orchestra to include the Visual Listening Guide at their concerts.

Guides were distributed to audiences at performances of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 on April 23, conducted by Tania Miller, and of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 on May 7, led by SSO Music Director Eric Paetkau.

Print versions were made available to those attending the concert in-person, while those watching the livestream had access to a digital PDF download.

Many thanks for the opportunity!

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra: Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5

For their opening season concerts conducted by Robert Spano, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra created a beautiful brochure insert featuring my Visual Listening Guide to Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Mark Gresham, who reviewed the program for Arts Atlanta, noted that “there were a couple of young adults seated next to me who were actively using the guide during the work, and perhaps that is the demographic to whom the symbol-filled graphic guide is addressed.” Although the Guides are intended for people of varying experiences with classical music, I love to hear that young people find them a useful way to engage with a symphony during performance.