The CEO and president of New World Symphony, Howard Herring, will be keeping his eye on the audience inside the New World Center during the opening of the orchestra’s 2025-26 season on Saturday, Oct. 4, but he’ll also be keen to watch what is happening outside.
That's the night the New World Symphony broadcasts its live Wallcast concert. Groups will gather with lawn chairs, picnic blankets and food in tow to take in the Wallcast concert outside on the 7,000-square-foot screen of what’s happening inside.
Stephane Deneve is entering his third season as artistic director of New World Symphony. (Photo by Alex Markow, courtesy of New World Symphony)
“Out in Soundscape Park, where we have Wallcast, 80 percent of that audience comes in groups of five or more. We were doing surveys one night and we ask one woman what she thought of Soundscape Park and she said, ‘When I get here, this is instant community.' So we are building a relationship inside the community with our artistic expression.”
What’s new this year is, for the first time since 2011, the Wallcast will look and sound even more immersive than before.“We continue to upgrade our systems,” said Clyde Scott, vice president and creative director of NWS Media.
“We have been upgrading our audio, video and robotics systems,” according to Scott. The second round of upgrades were completed this summer.
“We’ll be starting the season, for the first time since 2011, a brand new audio system in the park.”
The concert, with another performance on Sunday, Oct. 5 (not shown on Wallcast), led by Artistic Director Stéphane Denève will include Beethoven’s revolutionary "Eroica Symphony" along with American composer James Lee III’s"Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan," an orchestral tribute to Harriet Tubman evoking her courage and journey toward freedom, and Aaron Copland’s "Lincoln Portrait," honoring the enduring ideals of democracy and justice, featuring film and stage actor Joshua Malina (“West Wing, Scandal”) as narrator.
Photographer: Photographer: Rui Dias-Aidos
Dynamic immersive projections on the five “sails” that span the upper half of the space, will accompany two of the pieces in the opening season concert of New World Symphony.
Inside, there will be dynamic immersive projections on the five “sails” that span the upper half of the space. For “Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan,” immersive projections inspired by Bisa Butler’s striking quilted portrait of Harriet Tubman draw on images of quilting, embroidery, textiles, collage, and painting.
For “Lincoln Portrait,” projections will immerse the concert hall with thought-provoking, stimulating, and inspiring text drawn from Lincoln and other sources.
The Saturday, Oct. 4 performance marks the first Wallcast concert of the season and the debut of an energy-efficient audio/video upgrade, offering noticeably improved clarity, depth, and dynamic sound for the thousands of audience members who attend the free concerts in SoundScape Park each season, according to a statement from NWS.
Scott agrees with Herring about Wallcast being a vehicle to draw people together.“We get people of all ages and backgrounds, families, groups of friends, and it becomes a gathering. The experience itself is special: we’re taking the production from inside the concert hall, creating a highly produced video and audio presentation, and bringing it outdoors to 1,500 or even 2,000 people in the park for free. It’s something you really can’t find anywhere else in Miami,” he said.
Those who live around Soundscape Park may have heard some rumblings as Scott and his crew were making sure everything is in tip-top shape before the upgraded Wallcast appears in living color.
“Testing over the past month has shown how much more immersive it will feel. At the same time, we’ve upgraded our cameras and robotic system in the concert hall for the first time in seven or eight years. The picture quality is phenomenal. This first Wallcast with the new system is going to be a truly beautiful experience,” said Scott.
Scott joined the staff of the New World Symphony in 2003 and worked closely with architect Frank Gehry and Gehry Partners on the extraordinary integration of HD video and projection technology of the New World Center.
The Wallcast at New World Center in Soundscape Park has undergone improvements this season, the latest since it began broadcasting in 2011. (Photo by WorldRedEye, courtesy of New World Symphony)
“I was very fortunate to be a part of every meeting at the Gehry Partners offices. I was in exactly the right place at the exactly the right time to be involved in the planning from the very earliest stages,” said Scott.
Since he has seen so many Wallcasts over the years, are there any that have stood out?
“We did a Mahler Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas that was incredibly powerful and deeply moving, the connection was palpable, and everything just flowed perfectly. Another was a premiere by Anna Clyne last season with Denève conducting. It featured immersive projections and specialized lighting. Tackling that technically was a challenge, but it came together beautifully both in the hall and outside in the park. It was a powerful moment where the technology and the music truly merged.”
IF YOU GO!
WHAT: New World Symphony’s “Denève: Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ ”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, also, Wallcast® ; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5.
WHERE: New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach
TICKETS: $40, $75. $85, $95, $100, $115, $130, $160. Wallcast Free.
INFORMATION: (305) 673-3331 and nws.edu
