This is London November 2026 - Flipbook - Page 7
PLAYING WITH FIRE: AN IMMERSIVE
ODYSSEY
This autumn, the Southbank Centre
unveils the UK premiere of Playing With
Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja
Wang, a major new mixed-reality
experience and bold expansion of the
piano recital, written and directed by
Pierre-Alain Giraud. Debuted in winter
2025 at the Paris Musée de la musique,
visitors have been blown away by this
uniquely immersive experience led by one
of the world’s finest pianists.
Featuring an avatar of superstar pianist
Yuja Wang performing on a real, selfplaying Steinway Spirio piano, the music
is brought to life by dreamlike virtual
animations that evolve as you move.
Water rises and engulfs you, flames
dance, and extraordinary figures appear,
drawing you deeper into a ‘jaw-dropping
fantasy world’ (The Telegraph).
The Financial Times described the
VR concert as ‘a retrofuturist spectacle’,
while Wang has explained that ‘with the
enclosure of the headset, we enter our
own intimate space – yet still connected
to others – understanding the evolution of
humanity, its rituals, its cosmic divinities’.
Combining live recital, visual art,
mixed reality and virtual reality
technologies with spatialised sound, the
production places classical music in
striking dialogue with virtual worlds. The
state-of-the-art performance experience
centres around a repertoire personally
curated by Yuja Wang that includes work
by Debussy, Ravel, Bach, Stravinsky and
Prokofiev. Visual environments transform
in response to the music – serene night
skies, molten primordial forms and
dreamlike waterscapes – while fragments
of Paul Verlaine’s poetry deepen the
introspective atmosphere and chart pivotal
moments of emotional development.
So, don your virtual reality headset and
roam freely around the space or simply
take a seat and be absorbed in this
multisensory world – a whole new way to
experience live music. At the Royal
Festival Hall until Sunday 3 January.
www.southbankcentre.co.uk
7
Playing with Fire.
Photo: Pete Woodhouse.
5 - 9 Nov 2026
For one week only
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