“ ‘The concert experience has become predictable,’ the composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen said this week,” writes Joshua Barone in Thursday’s (6/7) New York Times. “ ‘I’m not talking about artistic quality or content of the program, but the ritual itself.’ … Mr. Salonen … fresh from a rehearsal with the New York Philharmonic, was speaking at David Geffen Hall while preparing for ‘Foreign Bodies,’ a one-night-only interdisciplinary extravaganza on Friday that marks the end of his three-year tenure as the orchestra’s composer in residence…. He shares billing with the New York premiere of a violin concerto by Daniel Bjarnason, a video installation by Tal Rosner and choreography by Wayne McGregor…. Oh, and drinks will be allowed in the hall—a rarity at Lincoln Center…. Orchestras, he added, must consider what audiences—especially young ones—want from a performance…. Mr. Salonen remains committed to symphonic music, but he has lofty ideas about where to take the art form next.… He thinks 360-degree sound systems and virtual reality … could give way to ‘a neo-Wagnerian idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk. You can write a piece for a symphony orchestra, electronics, holograms, V.R. and 360-sound design.’ ”
Posted June 8, 2018
