A gritty venue, electronic dance music, immersive art... and the Charlotte Symphony?
The Charlotte Symphony has a groundbreaking project in the works that takes the nearly century-old organization somewhere it’s never gone before — into the world of electronic dance music.
It’s called “MERGE: Symphonic x Electronic,” a multi-sensory experience that combines classical repertoire, electronic dance music and immersive visuals. It’s the first in a series of forays into immersive entertainment for the orchestra.
The concert is set for May 10 and 11 at Blackbox Theater, a live music venue off East Sugar Creek that typically plays host to driving beats and late night dance crowds. The club’s website describes the space as “gritty-chic.”
A few acts will play at “MERGE,” which stretches from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. But the evening’s centerpiece will be the symphony’s live performance, beginning at 9 p.m. along with Asheville-based electronic music composer and DJ Liam Collins, known as Push/Pull.
The orchestra’s resident conductor, Christopher James Lees, will direct 25 string musicians as they perform by themselves and with Push/Pull.
The performance will also feature original digital art created by Joe Vassar, who goes by the moniker Tenorless.
With the aid of about a half dozen projectors and projection mapping, his creations will pulse and undulate on surfaces throughout the space, creating a visually immersive experience. They will also illuminate a 26’x14.5’ LCD wall.
After about a 70-minute set with the symphony, Push/Pull will DJ until midnight. The evening will also include a late-night takeover presented by Kouch Kollective, featuring Jack the Giant live set & DJ and Empti b2b Scratch the Surface b2b Poetic.
“This is very much an experimental opportunity for us,” said CSO President and CEO David Fisk. It’s rare, he added, for a large organization to “have a chance to go public and try something and see if it catches.”
He said that experimentation is possible thanks to a $210,000 grant, spread over three years, from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Art + Tech Expansion Fund.
What’s behind the CSO experimentation?
Fisk said the orchestra was Inspired by Blumenthal Arts’ success with Immersive Van Gogh, which ran for six months in 2021. (That popular event drew more than 300,000 visitors, including 78% of whom were first-time ticket buyers, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.)
Fisk said the orchestra’s leadership wondered if there was an equivalent musical path they could pursue that would also align with a new emphasis on music and wellness.
Beyond its creative potential, a major objective of the project is to expand the orchestra’s audience, said Mical Hutson, vice president of marketing and audience development. Electronic dance music audiences generally skew younger than typical audiences for symphony events.
In Charlotte, EDM fans are also very ethnically diverse, she said.
The hope is to capture a new audience segment that may not have yet experienced the symphony.
“Even if we have folks of a similar age-range coming to hear us at our On Tap series or at our movie series or at our other outdoor concerts,” Fisk said, “this is a definite kind of audience that we don’t have right now, because we haven’t done anything like it before.”
Hutson said she knows of several orchestras on the West Coast and in Europe that are also experimenting with classical music and immersive entertainment. But Charlotte’s project will be an original undertaking featuring all North Carolina-based artists.
Collaborating with Blumenthal Arts
Blumenthal Arts, which has quickly established itself as a national leader in the immersive field, is co-presenting “MERGE.” It also recently announced it is moving into a permanent home for immersive space entertainment in uptown near Bank of America Stadium.
Blumenthal Arts lands on prominent uptown site near stadium for new immersive shows home
Fisk said the two organizations jointly participated in workshops and audience research, including convening a local focus group to better understand the community’s needs and interests, with the aid of international arts consultants WolfBrown.
Blumenthal helped the orchestra identify the performance space, provided video projectors and also assisted in programming an interactive artwork in an adjacent quiet room. That piece, “Kinetic Diffusion,” by artist Brandon Powers, incorporates AI and motion capture technology.
What to expect
Lees, DJ Collins and artist Vassar spoke to the Observer by video call and shared details on the upcoming event.
Lees describes “MERGE” as a one-of-a-kind collaboration, offering something new to local audiences. “We haven’t quite explored these edges in Charlotte yet,” Lees said. “And it got me really excited when we said we wanted to do an immersive experience... finding overlap in ways that would work in Charlotte.”
Lees and Collins have been working closely to develop an experience that would highlight the strengths of each genre and what they have in common.
Collins said the performance will showcase the orchestra’s strengths in harmony and virtuosity. And his electronic music provides “ear candy” by adding timbre, texture and rhythmic elements that are physically impossible for a human to play.
These are sounds that often can be heard on movie soundtracks, he said.
The musicians found a sweet spot at what Collins describes as the “tail end” of the classical music repertoire, with sonic through lines to today’s electronic music. Their performance will include music by John Luther Adams, Philip Glass, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Wojciech Kilar, Steve Reich, Kilowatts, and Sixis.
Some of Collins’ original compositions also will be played by the symphony. They were specially arranged for the event by Benjamin Hjertmann to merge symphonic and electronic sounds together.
“I’m not a classical composer by any means,” Collins said. But he did attend music school, which he and Lees agree allows them to speak the same language musically. It also has helped them identify the similarities between each of their musical specialties.
“Liam and I talked about this,” Lees said. “We sat in my kitchen for about four hours back in January playing music for each other and talking about sounds, nerding out in a most satisfying way that I haven’t felt since college.”
He called Collins a “very gifted composer” whose tools and materials are simply different from what has been traditionally used in classical music.
“We’re not taking pen to paper anymore,” Lees said. “You’ve got an entire sandbox with all these different audible experiences… sort of Lego bricks that you can arrange in different variety.
“And it’s that combination and that personal style that distinguishes a composer like Liam and a composer like Wojciech Kilar, who we’re playing some or John Luther Adams, who we start with.”
Vassar, who has toured the country creating visual effects for big-name groups, including rockers Matchbox 20 and rapper Kid Cudi, describes his tools as visual instruments. “What I do is very improvisational,” he said. “ “I’m pretty much just painting with my computer in the moment.”
But to improvise, he has to design his artwork and create a code that allows him to manipulate it.
Something for everyone
From the moment people walk through the door, they will be immersed in music and images, Lees said. The program has been carefully crafted, he said, to build in momentum, energy and volume throughout the evening.
“Once we start moving... you won’t help but be able to move your body and feel just completely swept away by the energy that’s been building.”
Both Lees and Collins said the evening will offer an experience that is both familiar and new to audiences who have more comfort with one genre or the other, or who are simply culturally curious.
“I think people will be really amazed by the groove and the heart, by the sound and the soul,” Lees said. “It’s going to be something really captivating for anybody.”
Want to go?
MERGE: Symphonic X Electronic, May 10-11 at 9 p.m.
Blackbox Theater, 421 E. Sugar Creek Road, Charlotte
For tickets and more info, go to charlottesymphony.org
More arts coverage
Want to see more stories like this? Sign up here for our free “Inside Charlotte Arts” newsletter: charlotteobserver.com/newsletters#navlink=subnav. And you can join our Facebook group, “Inside Charlotte Arts,” by going here: facebook.com/groups/insidecharlottearts.
