Art Genève 2025: OSR opens the orchestra’s doors with Virtual Hall®

Art Genève 2025: the first encounter with the public

From 30 January to 2 February 2025, visitors to Art Genève discovered at Palexpo another way of experiencing the concert. Presented in preview by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) and Cybel’Art, Virtual Hall® allowed them to don a headset to place themselves virtually among the musicians. Unlike a concert film with imposed framing, the spectator could choose for themselves where to observe the stage. The demonstration made art, music and innovation talk to one another, but its promise was above all human: to bring closer the gestures, the looks and the collective energy of the orchestra.

Report “Putting oneself in the shoes of an orchestral musician via virtual reality”, 12h45, 2 February 2025. © Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS). See the report on Play RTS.

From the Victoria Hall six-seater to the heart of the OSR

Recorded at Geneva’s Victoria Hall, the experience presented at Art Genève in January 2025 offered six 360° viewpoints between which the public could navigate. A synchronized score accompanied the listening. Two works were then on the programme: Beethoven’s Third Symphony, “Eroica”, and Rossini’s William Tell Overture. These perspectives neither replace the concert hall nor the presence of the performers: they open another door onto the music, to follow the birth of a motif, observe the dialogue between sections and appreciate the ensemble’s work in a different way.

Cybel’Art and Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu: technology in the service of emotion

The Morges-based company Cybel’Art, founded by Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu, designed this immersive solution with the OSR. Synchronizing several camera takes and letting each visitor move freely between them requires careful technical orchestration; the objective remains, however, very human: to share the emotion of the concert. For Orunesu, this ambition is rooted in a personal history as a music lover and entrepreneur. In a profile published by the Journal de Morges in 2021, he cited Herbert von Karajan as a musical reference, notably for his pioneering interest in technology. This is an inspiration of the founder of Cybel’Art, and not a collaboration between Karajan and Virtual Hall®.

Another way to share the concert

Art Genève gave the first visitors the opportunity to explore a new language of live performance. The OSR and Cybel’Art showed that a virtual reality headset can extend the encounter with the orchestra, awaken the curiosity of new audiences and invite a rediscovery of familiar works from a different angle. Virtual Hall® is not an alternative to the concert: it is an invitation to step into the music — and, perhaps, then to push open the door of the concert hall.

Sources and context

Retrospective article written in 2026 from RTS reports (28 January 2025), Tribune de Genève (23 January 2025) and TempsLibre.ch (23 January 2025). The video report “Putting oneself in the shoes of an orchestral musician via virtual reality” was broadcast on 12h45 on 2 February 2025. © Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS).