ORANGO

Orango is Oscar Bianchi’s response to the challenge of involving the public in the performance of a piece of contemporary classical music.  Across the duration of the piece, a pre-prepared group of public participants join in from their seats in the hall, and then move onto the stage to join the sonic landscape of the work on equal terms with the professional musicians.

Orango breaks the normal conventions of the concert giving ritual and plays with audience expectations.  Full of humour and surprise, it’s a perfect piece to introduce a wider audience to the exciting sound worlds and possibilities of new music.  It has successfully been staged as an evening event and also a family concert.

Connect is a programme of collaboration between the London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern (Frankfurt), Asko Schoenberg  (Holland) and Remix (Porto) ensembles.  It is funded by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne. The project is designed to explore the relationship between audience and the musicians and composer but challenging their conventionally assigned roles.  A series of commissions have taken place which involve the audience in the rehearsal and performance of each piece.  

Different composers have approached this challenge in different ways.  Three other pieces currently exist from the project by Christian Mason, Huang Ruo and Philip Venables.