The Sound Within
Creative Direction / Programming / Script / Projection Design
Free to wander through an orchestra performing Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, The Sound Within puts the audience at the mixing desk.
Alongside this, multimedia storytelling provides an insight into Beethoven’s own changing relationship with sound as his deafness developed. This is not the story of Beethoven the legend, but Beethoven the human: of someone living through crisis and vulnerability, fear and confusion, and finding their way through to fulfil their calling.
In a script built from letters, conversation books and historical sources, the composer’s experience is voiced by Anton Lesser and BSL interpreted by Angie Newman, combined with sound design and projections.
“Instead of passively spectating a bunch of very talented people do something I didn’t fully understand, #ConcertLab put me at the mixing desk. I could decide what to turn up and down, I could decide how to listen to the piece as it was happening, I could control what I was hearing. And it made the music spectacular.”
“The moment the orchestra began, the audience’s faces lit up. For what is normally such a formal and rigid setting the crowd were like children getting the chance to stay up beyond bedtime as they meandered giddily between the brass and the bass.”
“The COOLEST concert by @SouthbankSinf this evening, don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed an orchestral concert that much. Fantastic concept - more please!!”
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Performance date: 2019
My role: Concept, programming, script, production, publicity
Part of Southbank Sinfonia’s #ConcertLab series
Venue: Oval Space, Bethnal Green
Conductor: Lee Reynolds
Narration: Anton Lesser & Angie Newman
Event photography: Farzana Gafoor
Supported by Cockayne, Grants for the Arts and the London Community Foundation
