Pensacola Symphony Orchestra Presents Awakenings
Date Posted: Oct 25, 2017
At this year’s Foo Foo Festival, The Pensacola Symphony Orchestra will combine music and photography to create a unique performance that celebrates the storied history and anticipated future of Pensacola.
“A picture is worth a thousand words…. Music expresses what words cannot….Both pictures and music take us into the realm beyond words,” said Music Director Peter Rubardt. Well, the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra is prepared to leave you speechless. This year, the symphony has partnered with multimedia artist Nicholas Bardonnay to create a unique sensory experience.
“Multimedia artist Nicholas Bardonnay has created a new work that combines images with live orchestral performance to capture the essence of Pensacola. Titled Pensacola Then and Now, the piece pulls together a photographic presentation of both historical and present-day images. Accompanied by a live performance of Curiale’s Awakenings, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime celebration of all things Pensacola.”
Nicholas Bardonnay is a multimedia artist of the Los Angeles, California-based production company Westwater Arts. He creates symphonic photochoreography, which blends evocative panoramic photography with live classical music for a seamlessly choreographed visual and sound experience. Using multiple digital projectors, Bardonnay live-cues these “visual concertos” and projects the images onto a 440-square foot screen flown above the performing orchestra.
The performance will include photos from Pensacola’s past and present that will be projected above the orchestra, creating a visual concerto, all while being choreographed to the music of American Composer Joseph Curiale’s Awakening. The celebration also gets patriotic with images of national parks while featuring Aaron Copland’s music from The Tender Land and an all-orchestral finale with Dvořák’s New World Symphony.
In addition to the concert, Pensacola Symphony Orchestra is offering free admission to the working dress rehearsal at the Saenger Theatre on November 4 at 1:30 pm.