Phones are more than welcome at this concert: for the premiere performance of his City of Floating Sounds, Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo asks audience members to download an app, and then stand at one of four designated points in Manchester. At a set time, each concertgoer will play one of eleven synchronized tracks forming part of Huang's work, and will begin to walk to the concert venue.
The app will show the location of other concertgoers, who will then be able to create their own orchestral textures depending on who they walk with. Other noises, such as rain or traffic, will also become part of City of Floating Sounds, planned as an outdoor piece.
Huang refers to his boundary-blurring philosophy of music as "Dimensionalism" because "Music is not something left to right, front and back." Rather than merely asking audiences to receive his music, he encourages them to creatively engage with it.
"Yes, phones can be distracting," Huang tells The Guardian. "When my operas are staged, I don't want people filming. I want them to be listening to the voices and reading the surtitles. But this piece is designed to use mobile phones to bring people together."
Born on Hainan Island in 1976, Huang recalled the open-air operas of his childhood from which he took inspiration. These operas were free, relaxed events where attendees could picnic-starkly different from the expensive, highly-formal operas of the West.
Congregating audience members will grow the symphony as they draw closer to Aviva Studios. There, they will enjoy the second part of the performance: encircled by the BBC Philharmonic, they are free to sit, lounge, or stand as the ensemble gives a full performance of Huang's City of Floating Sounds. Phones are still welcome, Huang says: "I don't mind people recording a little bit, as long as it's not the whole thing. I would like them to share it on social media - so as to embrace as large an audience as possible."
City of Floating Sounds will be performed in Manchester from June 6 to 8. It will then go to New York on July 23 and 24.
