Sound of Charlotte Blog
The Making of Become Ocean
February 11, 2025
Imagine stepping into a space where music surrounds you. Where light shimmers and shifts like the surface of the water. Where sound flows in waves, washing over you from every direction. This is Become Ocean, a groundbreaking immersive concert experience presented by the Charlotte Symphony in partnership with Blumenthal Arts, coming to Blume Studios on February 28 and March 1.
John Luther Adams's Pulitzer Prize-winning composition Become Ocean is a musical exploration of the ocean's vast, mysterious power, and the ecological challenges of rising sea levels. Bringing this powerful concept to life in a way that fully immerses the audience requires a careful blend of artistic vision and technical expertise. Two Creative Directors from Visuell Immersive joined us to discuss how they're working with the Charlotte Symphony's creative team to shape this one-of-a-kind experience.
Creating an Oceanic World
Unlike a traditional concert hall, Blume Studios provides a flexible space where sound and visuals can fully surround the audience."We approached this with simplicity in mind -- not to overwhelm, but to create something elemental," explains Ian Robinson, one of the artistic minds behind Become Ocean. "Water, light, movement, and sound -- all blending into a singular, meditative experience that allows space for each audience member to bring their own 'in ocean' emotions to the surface."
From the moment audiences arrive, they will feel immersed in this world. "In the lobby, the waves greet you -- lapping at the edges, soft but vast, setting the stage for what's to come. But inside the performance space, you're pulled under, into the deep, where everything moves with weight and grace."
At Blume Studios, Ian Robinson (far right) and Aaron McCoy (seated, right) discuss Become Ocean with creative teams from the Charlotte Symphony and Blumenthal Arts.
Merging Music and Motion
To bring this vision to life, the production team is designing projections and lighting that move with the same fluidity as the music. These elements won't serve as just a backdrop, but as an extension of the music itself."The project aims to create a transformative environment that embodies the verb 'become' in Become Ocean by transporting the audience into a contemplative, beautiful, and emotionally connected oceanic space," says Aaron McCoy, Creative Director from Visuell Immersive.
At times, the space will be bathed in deep blues and shifting silvers, mimicking light refracting through water. Elsewhere, projections will ripple across the walls, expanding and contracting with the ebb and flow of the orchestra.
"The way light moves in water is unpredictable -- sometimes a shimmer, sometimes a rush," Robinson says. "Our projections mimic that fluidity, creating an environment that doesn't dictate but suggests, allowing the audience's imagination to take over."
"This isn't just a concert; it's a journey."
Floating Between Sound and Light
Rather than simply illustrating an oceanic landscape, the production invites audiences to experience the sensation of drifting within it."This isn't just a concert; it's a journey," Robinson explains. "We wanted the audience to feel like they are adrift, floating between sound and light, between the surface and the depths, with no clear beginning or end -- just the pulse of the ocean carrying them."
McCoy adds, "By the end, the light dissolves into an infinite fade, a slow retreat into silence. The ocean remains -- vast, unknowable, and ever-moving."
Experience Become Ocean
Join us for this immersive performance of Become Ocean at Blume Studios on February 28 and March 1.
... Read more
Mario Bauzá, “The Original Mambo King”
February 4, 2025
If you know the mambo, rumba, or cha-cha, you have the Afro-Cuban jazz musician, bandleader, and composer Mario Bauzá to thank. Born in Havana, Cuba in 1911, Bauzá was among the first musicians to spread Afro-Cuban music in the United States through the New York City jazz scene during the Harlem Renaissance. By collaborating with orchestra musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Chano Pozo, and Machito to create Afro-Cuban jazz combinations, "The Original Mambo King" cemented West African influences in jazz music, popularizing the new fusion and transforming the future of an American genre.
A clarinet prodigy raised by Spanish godparents in Cuba, Bauzá was trained in classical music from a young age and was only 9 years old when he held a chair as bass clarinetist in the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra in 1922. He later joined dance bands, and as a teenager, he traveled with Antonio María Romeu's charanga ensemble to New York City in 1927, where Harlem's community made a life-changing impact on the impressionable musician. "I fell in love with jazz then," Bauzá later recalled to DownBeat magazine.
Determined to return to New York, he picked up saxophone to play full time in jazz clubs but found dwindling employment. When the opportunity opened for a trumpet player to record with the Orquesta Don Azpiazú in 1930, the story goes that an inspired Bauzá told singer Antonio Machín, "If you buy me a trumpet I'll play for you." With just three weeks of practice, Bauzá went into the studio and recorded "La Mulata Rumbera." He was hired as the lead trumpeter for Chick Webb's Orchestra in 1933, which brought him closer to the thriving music community where he would find inspiration and create fusion.
After joining the Cab Calloway Orchestra in 1938, Bauzá convinced Calloway to hire a talented fellow trumpeter he met during his time in Chick Webb's Orchestra -- Dizzy Gillespie. As the connection developed between Bauzá and Gillespie, a new musical fusion followed, intertwining Gillespie's bebop with Afro-Cuban polyrhythms and Pan-American styles. Gillespie later reflected, "with Mario Bauzá in the [Cab Calloway] band, I really became interested in bringing Latin and especially Afro-Cuban influences into my music...No one was playing that type of music where the bass player, instead of saying, 'boom, boom, boom, boom,' broke up the rhythm, 'boom-be, boom-be, boom-be, boom-be.' No one was doing that. I became very fascinated with the possibilities for expanding and enriching jazz rhythmically and phonically through the use of Afro-Cuban rhythmic and melodic devices."
Machito, Mario Bauzá, and René Hernández, pioneers of mambo in New York, The Wolfsonian-FIU, Vicki Gold Levi Promised Gift
Seeking more musical avenues as co-founder of the diverse orchestra Machito and the Afro-Cubans in 1939, Bauzá sprinkled the rhythms of Havana with jazz arrangement techniques and influences from band members of Italian, Filipino, Latin, Black, and Jewish heritage alongside the vocalist and maraca player Frank "Machito" Grillo. The conga drum, bongos, timbales, and the West African rhythm structures they voiced became inseparable from Latin jazz.
Blending Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz harmony in his own composition was inevitable. Bauzá's "Tangá," recorded in 1943, is noted by its organizing clave rhythm, brass jazz harmonies, and improvised solos as the first true Afro-Cuban jazz or Latin jazz song -- from which emerged the genre and its many musicians, including Arturo Sandoval, Chucho Valdés, Celia Cruz, and Tito Puentes. Becoming known as "The Original Mambo King," Bauzá believed the new Afro-Cuban fusion he created with Machito and the Afro-Cubans was "a marriage. Each [music] preserving its identity but walking together."
Explore the world of Afro-Cuban music with the Charlotte Symphony at Havana Nights on February 21st and 22nd, featuring soprano Camille Zamora and the Mambo Kings.... Read more
John Luther Adams: A Composer in Tune with Nature
January 8, 2025
For composer John Luther Adams, music is a lifelong search for home -- an invitation to slow down, reflect, and rediscover our place in the natural world. Deeply inspired by his experiences in the Alaskan wilderness, Adams has spent his career creating soundscapes that connect us to the environment in profound ways, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning Become Ocean. The Charlotte Symphony will perform this groundbreaking work with immersive 360-degree audio and custom lighting design at Blume Studios on February 28 and March 1, 2025.
Adams spent nearly 40 years living in northern Alaska. Immersed in the stark beauty of the Arctic, he discovered a musical voice grounded in space, stillness, and the elemental forces of nature. Adams worked full-time as an environmental activist before devoting himself completely to composition as a way to spark change, believing music could move people in ways that politics could not.
This deep concern for the earth and humanity's future runs through all of Adams's works, particularly Become Ocean. Inspired by the ocean's vast, mysterious power and the ecological challenges of rising sea levels, the piece unfolds like waves, rising and falling, enveloping listeners in a soundscape that mirrors the ocean. But it's more than a reflection on nature -- it's a reminder of the fragile balance we must protect."If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world, then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society into being."
"Life on Earth first emerged from the sea. And as the polar ice melts and sea levels rise, we humans find ourselves facing the prospect that once again we may literally become ocean."
The upcoming performances at Blume Studios take this concept to another level. 360° spatial audio and custom light projections will surround the audience with sound and images. It's an innovative approach that aligns perfectly with Adams's vision of making music that is not just about nature, but that feels like nature itself.
"Although it begins in solitude, my work is completed in community. The music doesn't come fully to life until other people -- performing musicians, listeners, recording engineers, critics, and so many others -- receive it and make it their own."
Join the Charlotte Symphony on February 28 and March 1, 2025, at Blume Studios for Become Ocean.... Read more
Concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu Talks Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto
January 7, 2025
On January 31 and February 1, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu will take the stage with frequent collaborator pianist Phillip Bush for an emotional and highly anticipated performance of Mendelssohn's Double Concerto. Calin sat down to share his thoughts on what makes this concerto so special and why this performance holds special meaning for him.
What makes Mendelssohn's Double Concerto so exciting for you to perform?
Pianist Phillip Bush and I have performed together many times, but this will be our first time playing a concerto together with the full orchestra behind us. Mendelssohn's Double Concerto is such a wonderful piece of music -- full of youthful exuberance and energy, with some very delicate and melancholic moments typical of Mendelssohn.This concerto was composed in 1832, right after Mendelssohn wrote his Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra, a piece I performed with the CSO during the pandemic. In many ways, these two works are quite similar -- full of beautiful melodic material and intense, fast passage work. What an incredible accomplishment for the 14-year-old Mendelssohn!
What are you most looking forward to about performing with pianist Phillip Bush and conductor Akiko Fujimoto?
I have played with Phillip Bush so many times that I've lost count! Our first collaboration was during my first year in Charlotte when we performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Trio, and from that moment, something just clicked! Phillip is such a wonderful musician and person, and he's very easy to work with. Every time we play together, I learn something new from him. Most of the time, we don't even have to talk; things just fall into place naturally.This will be my first time working with Akiko Fujimoto, and I'm really looking forward to it! I'm sure it will be a fantastic collaboration.
What would you like the audience to know about this performance?
This performance will be especially meaningful for me because it will take place one year to the day since my mother's passing. For me, it will be highly emotional, and I hope that I will make her proud.Join CSO Concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu, pianist Phillip Bush, and conductor Akiko Fujimoto for a thrilling performance of Mendelssohn's Double Concerto on January 31 and February 1. The program will also include Louise Farrenc's Overture No. 2 and Robert Schumann's "Spring" Symphony.... Read more
Meet Bart Dunn: Our New Principal Music Librarian
December 4, 2024
Behind every Charlotte Symphony performance is a dedicated team working behind the scenes to bring the music to life. Some of the most important players in that process are the team in the music library. Managing thousands of pages of sheet music each season, they ensure our musicians have everything they need to deliver exceptional performances. Managing much of this effort is Bart Dunn, our new Principal Librarian. We sat down with Bart to learn more about his journey and the essential role of a music librarian.
Tell us a bit about yourself -- where are you from, and how did you find your way to Charlotte?
I'm originally from Southern Maryland and studied at Towson University, just outside Baltimore. After graduate school, I joined the profession and worked at Temple University, the Jacksonville Symphony, and most recently, Houston Grand Opera. My wife and I are East Coast people at heart, so being closer to family made Charlotte the perfect fit. And as much as I love opera, being back in a symphonic environment where there's such a wide variety of programming is exciting and keeps the job interesting. Last weekend it was Beethoven X Beyoncé, this week it's Brahms's Requiem!
What led you to become a music librarian? Was this always your plan?
Not exactly! I started as a cellist but realized in college that I didn't want to spend five hours a day practicing to keep my technique sharp. I wanted to stay connected to performance without the intense practice schedule. A chance summer position at Interlochen introduced me to ensemble librarianship, and everything clicked. It's funny -- many of us in this field stumble upon it. It's a lot of "busy work," but it can be incredibly rewarding.So, what does a music librarian do?
A phrase that music librarians often throw around is, "We provide the right music to the right people at the right time." Day to day, this means marking parts -- things like bowings or cuts -- researching repertoire, coordinating editions, and even reporting on performances to copyright holders. It's a mix of detailed, varied tasks, which keeps things interesting. I find writing in the bowings (markings in the music that indicate which direction to use the bow for string instruments) cathartic, in a sense.
What drew you to the Charlotte Symphony specifically?
Besides being closer to family, I love the variety of programming here. It's energizing to be part of an organization on an upward trajectory. With Music Director Kwamé Ryan here now, he's going to have his own distinct vision for programming and what he wants to see from the orchestra. I'm excited to see how the Symphony evolves over the next five to ten years -- and to be along for the ride!... Read more
| Older Posts » |
Latest Posts
- The Making of Become Ocean
- Mario Bauzá, “The Original Mambo King”
- John Luther Adams: A Composer in Tune with Nature
- Concertmaster Calin Ovidiu Lupanu Talks Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto
- Meet Bart Dunn: Our New Principal Music Librarian
- Get to Know Music Director Kwamé Ryan
- 5 Reasons to Take Your Child to the Symphony
- 5 Fun facts about the Shostakovich & Mendelssohn concert
- A Bold New Look for the Charlotte Symphony
- Get to Know Our New Board Chair, Richard Krumdieck
