“How to make yet another digitally streamed concert stand out?” writes Charlotte Gardner in Wednesday’s (4/21) Classical Music (U.K.) “For one New York orchestra the answer has been found in an ‘experiential’ project it had launched in live form, pre-Covid. The orchestra is the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, founded in 1999 by its director David Bernard, and the initiative is InsideOut Digital…. Said Bernard, ‘I thought what a different experience it is … [for audience members] to instead be sat actually within the orchestra, facing the conductor and feeling the electricity between the musicians.’… Titled InsideOut concerts, these interactive events … included Holst’s The Planets with 200 audience members seated among 100 musicians…. Last September, when finally it became possible for an orchestra to be able to gather together for a streamed concert without a live audience … InsideOut Digital was born: exactly the same format as for the live events, but with the live audience replaced by just two people sitting among the musicians—‘audience avatars’ … with six cameras capturing everything.… The plan for when limited audiences are allowed back into concert halls is to mount a hybrid event offering both live and digital tickets.”
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