Classical music and technological innovation are seen by many as being, for the best part, mutually exclusive – something the Labyrinth Installation Concertos project, created by New York-based artist and composer Paola Prestini, aims to change. 

Comprised of two audio-visual pieces – "Room No. 35" (premiering today) and "House of Solitude" – the pioneering project fuses live performance with video art to expand the boundaries of multimedia works. A new work by video artist Erika Harrsch allows cellist Maya Beiser to trigger ‘3D’ visuals, created by Harrsch and filmmaker Carmen Kordas, in real time.

“The wider intention of the project is to give the listener a through-composed journey that leaves one moved, intrigued, fulfilled and thinking about their own personal labyrinthine journeys,” says Prestini, whose work has appeared in the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. 

“My compositional intention was to create a multimedia work that had operatic dimensions for abstract voices, while technically achieving a deeper level of integration between live technology and my compositional language.”