Brava to our firm’s founder, Leila A. Amineddoleh, for being named Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Grammy®-Winning Experiential Orchestra (EXO).
The Experiential Orchestra during a performance. Image via the Experiential Orchestra.
About EXO
The Grammy®-Winning Experiential Orchestra features a star-studded lineup of New York City freelance musicians in concerts designed to engage audiences in immersive and imaginative ways. Featured in Symphony Magazine, hailed as the #1 Classical pick in TimeOut New York, and with articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post, EXO represents a dynamic example of how orchestral music can be engaging, relevant, and immersive.
Performances have included circus choreography to Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, invitations for the audience to dance to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and inviting the audience into the center of the orchestra at Lincoln Center. Other concerts have featured 36 oboes and bassoons surrounding the audience performing Lully and Rameau, commissioned 15 response-pieces to specific contemporary art at the Katzen Art Museum of American University, and “Loft Parties,” where 150 orchestra and audience members merge in a midtown New York apartment. Each concert is specifically created for the venue and audience, and often involves a combination of a party and a concert, all hosted by music director James Blachly.
Collaborations have included sold-out concerts of the music of Arvo Pärt at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Met Live Arts, and with the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and LPR Presents; subscription concerts for the Phillips Collection, and partnerships with Young Patrons of Lincoln Center, Americas Society, Halcyon Stage, MusiCambia, Muse Circus, Groupmuse, and Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy. EXO has performed throughout New York City, including at Alice Tully Hall, Roulette Intermedium, National Sawdust, and Fotografiska. EXO has commissioned works from prominent composers including Jessie Montgomery, Viet Cuong, Kristen Volness, Kate Copeland Ettinger, Wang Lu, Elliot Cole, and Christopher Wendell Jones.
Artistic collaboration is an essential part of the EXO model. Pauline Kim Harris is the Director of Artistic Planning, with an Artistic Team consisting of Alex Fortes, Lady Jess, Henry Wang, Sami Merdinian, and Michelle Ross. Patrick Castillo, Doug and Brad Balliett act as Artistic Advisors.
In 2021, EXO won a Grammy® Award with their recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, a recording that was featured around the world and short-listed for a Gramophone Award. Their second recording, American Counterpoints, featuring violinist Curtis Stewart in the music of Julia Perry and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, the New York Times, Strings Magazine, BBC Magazine, and Performance Today.
The orchestra has also developed an experiential model for groups and leadership trainings called “Listening Concerts,” in which executives and others are placed in the heart of the orchestra. These concerts have been featured at Lincoln Center, New York Hall of Science, MIT/Sloan, and for Fortune 500 companies.
Conductor James Blachly and the Experiential Orchestra. Image via the Experiential Orchestra.
In an interview in Symphony Magazine, founder Blachly explained that his goal is not to replace the traditional orchestral experience, but to keep the act of listening “fresh for everybody. . . . [At EXO, we] invite people in so that when they next attend a traditional concert, they hear things differently.”
To learn more about EXO, click here.