UNLTD — News Posts — Symphony Graphique

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.

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.

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.

In July, the Visual Listening Guide returned to Verbier, Switzerland, where, by invitation of the Verbier Festival Academy and UNLTD, I was the Verbier Festival’s Musicologist-in-Residence. For the 2022 edition, and through the generosity of an anonymous donor, the Festival commissioned me to create a new Visual Listening Guide to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

The new Visual Listening Guide to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony unveiled at the Verbier Festival. (Photo: Rachel Spiar)

Presenting the new Beethoven Symphony No. 9 Visual Listening Guide at Club Taratata. (Photo: Rachel Spiar)

The Guide was revealed on July 18, at a special afternoon talk I gave about the piece at Club Taratata.

Conductor Gabor Takács-Nagy with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. (Photo: Rachel Spiar)

Later that evening, the symphony was performed by the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, with soprano Iulia Maria Dan, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska, tenor AJ Gluekert, and bass Mikhail Petrenko, conducted by Gabor Takács-Nagy.

Copies of the Guide were made available to the audience if they wished to follow along and keep as a souvenir of what was an exhilarating concert.

During my time there, I also gave workshop presentations to the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra using the Visual Listening Guide to Felix Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony, as they prepared to perform the work with conductor Kent Nagano. Originally commissioned by the Verbier Festival UNLTD in 2018, this Guide, which has since received a design update, was the basis of my public talk before their concert on July 24, and was distributed in print to attendees.

The VJFO and conductor Kent Nagano take a bow after their performance of Mendelssohn’s “Reformation” Symphony.

Pre-concert chat at Café Schubert with the Mendelssohn “Reformation” Symphony Visual Listening Guide.

After watching them in rehearsal, it was wonderful to see these young musicians, aged 15 to 18, perform this symphony with great confidence and musical finesse.

Thank you to VF UNLTD for including the Visual Listening Guide in the Verbier Festival experience!

I had a wonderful time and hope to be back again soon!

Now Available!

The Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and the updated Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5 “Reformation” Visual Listening Guides are now available in the shop to purchase for personal use and for licensing by orchestras and educators.