Brickyard Broadcast by Lisa Bielawa – a spatialized virtual reality musical work presented by NC State

On Thursday, November 12 at 5pm CT / 6pm ET the North Carolina State University Department of Music presents Brickyard Broadcast from acclaimed composer Lisa Bielawa. Brickyard Broadcast, a spatialized work for hundreds of musicians will have its world premiere in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment designed by the digital media teams at the NC State University Libraries. The link to join the event will be posted at https://music.arts.ncsu.edu/brickyard-broadcast. After a pre-show discussion, viewers will enter the VR Brickyard environment built by the NC State University Libraries to experience the world premiere of Brickyard Broadcast, performed by the NC State orchestras (Raleigh Civic Symphony and Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra), the NC State choirs (State Chorale, Vox Accalia and Singing Statesmen), and the Concert Singers of Cary. Following the VR experience of the performance, audience members can join again for a Q&A session.

Brickyard Broadcast represents an energizing and participatory artistic process designed to help address the challenges faced by orchestras and choirs during this prolonged period of social distancing. The piece will be a 20-minute work that viewers can experience either from start to finish in a curated sound experience or in a self-guided modular way. Nine separate musical groups will animate the various areas of the virtual Brickyard, creating an immersive sound experience for anyone who visits the site, accessible either with VR interface or, in a 3-D stereo version, via any personal web device.

The choirs will sing fragments taken from the writings of various thinkers from a broad historical range: Gertrude Stein (“A refusal to sing is one thing, to go on with a song is not wrong.”); H.G. Wells (“It takes a multitude to make such a stillness”); Wallace Stegner (“There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters”); plus Anne Bradstreet, Phyllis Wheatley, Frank Lloyd Wright, Charles Ives, and Walt Whitman.