The games industry has always been ahead of the curve in making use of VR technology. But it’s not just games developers that are fascinated by the deceptively real 3D simulations – the arts have also embraced these new technologies; behind the clunky headsets are possibilities that unfurl like new worlds. A quintet from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and 3D specialist Henrik Oppermann open up a new dimension of chamber music to their audience with the help of VR headsets: a high-resolution spatial scan of the Elisabethkirche in Berlin becomes a score for an interactive soundscape against which Mozart’s famous G Minor string quintet unrolls. The listening experience can be influenced with one’s own body. So what does that mean exactly? While the recording reproduces the natural acoustic conditions of a live performance, it also allows one to wander freely around the space and interact with the musicians, the instruments and the sounds in real time.

A production of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Henrik Oppermann/Schallgeber. The production is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within »Neustart Culture«.

Image © Geoffroy Schied