Musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra have returned home after spending the past eight weeks taking orchestral music well beyond the concert hall, with projects spanning virtual reality at the Edinburgh Fringe, cultural exchange at Garma Festival in northeast Arnhem Land and a decade-long music education partnership in Indonesia.

The initiatives have seen MSO musicians work with young performers, First Nations artists, cultural leaders and arts administrators in Australia and overseas, reflecting the Orchestra’s growing emphasis on community engagement alongside its concert program.

Concerts of the Future. Photo © Andrew Parry

At the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, MSO performances were at the centre of Concerts of the Future, an immersive virtual-reality project developed by Australian arts platform House of Oz in collaboration with The Sonicrats, Monash University’s SensiLab and the MSO.

Presented from 1–28 August, the experience invited audiences to put on VR headsets, take a seat within a virtual MSO and perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 using futuristic instruments.

Designed to accommodate participants regardless of musical experience, the project used SensiLab technology, instruments developed by social enterprise The Sonicrats and MSO performances recorded at Robert Blackwood Hall at Monash University.