CUTTING edge technology is being used to give an experience where anyone – no matter their musical experience – will be able to find out what it’s like play with a world class orchestra.
An Edinburgh first, Concerts of the Future will allow audiences to join Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and “play” a Beethoven symphony.
Each 20-minute performance will see an intimate audience of five who will become fully immersed within the orchestra using VR headsets, spatial audio and 3D imaging.
Through custom-built wireless gestural controllers called AirSticks, audiences will have the chance to “play” Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.
“We’re really excited to show how anyone in Edinburgh can be a musician,” said composer, researcher and co-creator Ciaran Frame.
“Concert halls have always had this invisible wall between the people on stage and the people in the seats, and we want to dissolve it completely.
“Working with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and using technology developed at Monash University’s SensiLab, we have built an experience where anyone, regardless of musical background, can sit amongst a world-class orchestra and play.”
After the performance, every participant will be given a video showing them centre stage and capturing the orchestral experience.
As professional musicians, Frame and his team have often heard comments from non-players about how they wished they had learned to play an instrument or that they had started lessons and wished they had continued.
“We hear that so much it was part of the motivation of this work,” he said. “There’s so many would-be musicians out there that maybe just never get a chance to practise or don’t have the money or even the physical capability to play a musical instrument so we wanted to give them the chance to experience what it’s like.”
The team has tried out the technology in Melbourne but this will be the first time with a full symphony orchestra.
Asked if the VR sets might make people feel a bit nauseous, Frame said they had tried hard to prevent this when developing the show.
“We are trying to avoid it at all costs,” he said. “Sometimes when people use VR, they try these wild demos where they’re on a rollercoaster and everything’s moving around them, which is fantastic but it can be extremely disorientating.
“One of the things that we’re really proud of is that in our experience you’re staying still the whole time. You stay seated which is great for keeping your balance and your wits about you.”
The time wearing the VR set is fairly short in any case as it is just part of the whole experience.
“No technology is perfect but if you can weave it into the work and it supports the work in a really beautiful way, then we want to use it,” said Frame.
Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 was chosen as a “fantastic” entry point to classical music for anyone who is not familiar with the genre.
“You get to learn about Beethoven and how you relate to Beethoven and even how you might play a Beethoven piece in ten, 20 or 30 years time,” said Frame.
So far early reactions to the experience have been “amazing”.
“It’s so intimate and real that people feel quite emotionally affected by it,” he said. “I’ve played in many orchestras but even for me, putting on the headset and looking around is pretty special. There is something so visceral and intimate about sitting in an orchestra that’s all looking at you at the same time. It’s only five people, but you feel like you’re in the middle of a big orchestra.
He added: “Traditional instruments aren’t accessible to everyone. There are real barriers that prevent people playing music so this technology is just a really great way to open those doors a little bit more.”
Frame and his fellow members in the Sonicrats brought a show to the Fringe last year and he said they were delighted to be coming back.
“No one told us how beautiful Edinburgh is – we love it and we are so looking forward to this,” he said.
Developed at SensiLab, Monash University, Concerts of The Future by The Sonicrats and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is part of the House of Oz Edinburgh 2026 season.
It can be seen at Summerhall from August 6-30 (not 10th, 17th, 24th) at various times
