HARMONY at London Wall Place

• Guildhall School of Music & Drama students were commissioned to write new pieces of music, in collaboration with London Symphony Orchestra musicians
• The pieces were then performed by LSO musicians as part of a place-inspired installation featuring augmented reality visualisations
• The four artworks, collectively titled HARMONY, are installed across London Wall Place, creating an immersive experience for visitors, who can view and listen to the pieces through their phone.
• Co-commissioned by Culture Mile and Brookfield Properties, the four compositions and corresponding artworks form the second part in a trilogy of creative projects that constitute the PLAY Festival

Four newly-composed pieces of music by Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) have been unveiled at London Wall Place today to enliven the historic centre of the City of London. The pieces form part of an augmented reality installation, entitled HARMONY, produced by Guildhall Live Events and its Creative Director, award-winning director and designer Dan Shorten. HARMONY will be on show and accessible to the public for free over the next few months.

The immersive experience consists of four overlaid augmented reality visuals, accompanied by newly commissioned pieces of music. Musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) - Gareth Davies, Anna Bastow, James Maynard and Andy Harper - mentored Guildhall School of Music & Drama students from the school’s Electronic and Produced Music course to help them interpret the brief and shape their creative ideas. The students then composed four place-inspired pieces, which their LSO mentors performed.

Dan Shorten led the AR element of the project and was supported by a team of graduate animators, who developed four digital works. Each HARMONY installation features 3D animation overlaid onto the feed of a user’s phone camera, enabling them to listen to music and watch the animation as they move around the space.

The four artworks have been installed at distinct zones across London Wall Place: the Medieval St Alphage’s ruins, the One London Wall Place water feature, Salters’ Garden and the Highwalks. Each artwork is intrinsically connected to the specific site and the nature of the environment they’re set in, with each music piece featuring a solo acoustic instrumental part – flute, trombone, viola and clarinet.

Dan Shorten, Creative Director at Guildhall Live Events said: “HARMONY highlights the delicate balance of the elements that make a particular place unique. Collectively, the augmented reality, music compositions and totems draw inspiration from this magical blend of characteristics in the City of London and celebrate its place-specific creative energy by balancing contrasting elements unique to each location, such as the ancient and the modern at St. Alphage’s Gardens, the flora and fauna at Salters’ Gardens, the groundedness and flight at Highwalks, and the stillness and movement at One London Wall Place water feature.”

Gareth Davies, Principal Flute at London Symphony Orchestra, said: “After such a long time not being able to work with other musicians, it's been wonderful to collaborate with young composers from Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The future seemed quite bleak at times and so it is particularly important that we've been able to help and encourage the younger generation in writing new pieces which can be shared with people as they gradually come back into the city.”

Through their phones, visitors will experience the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly on the highwalks, a jellyfish leaping out of the water feature, a griffin guarding of the St Alphage’s ruins and a hummingbird flying over Salters’ Gardens.

Co-commissioned by Culture Mile and Brookfield Properties, the four artworks form the second phase in a trilogy of creative projects that constitute the PLAY Festival, due to take place in 2022 as a series of larger scale in-person performances at London Wall Place around a custom-designed pavilion by the ruins.

Information on each experience is below:

One London Wall Place Water Feature

Stillness & Movement

The artwork extracts an imagined underwater world above the water’s surface, with visuals cascading into the air in swirling, shimmering patterns to create a calm and reflective feeling in visitors. Inspired by the location’s clean, straight lines and soft, gentle reflections, the organic movement on the rippling water’s surface is echoed in the pace and rhythm of the movement of the animations. This movement at times contracts and even ceases completely, displaying the animations rising from the water as fixed in time. The central 3D character is a jellyfish, representing the gentle flowing rhythm of the water feature. The accompanying music piece is by Will Davenport, featuring a viola instrumental part.

Salters' Gardens

Natural & Constructed

The artwork is inspired by the layout of the gardens, with its carefully constructed lines and shapes between pathways and flowerbeds used as a cue to generate linear geometric patterns and structures in the animation. Floral, organic elements are elegantly intertwined within these geometric patterns, mirroring the modern buildings that surround the space. The central 3D character is a hummingbird, representing the natural beauty of the garden situated within a thriving urban landscape. The accompanying music piece is by Jasmine Meadon, featuring a flute instrumental part.

Roman Ruins

Ancient & Modern

The artwork explicitly disrupts the space it is situated in by highlighting the age of the ruins and their surroundings by using overtly contemporary graphic design to contrast the presence of something ancient and unyielding with constantly evolving abstract shapes and particle systems that cross and divide the space. The arched doorways act as portals to other locations or times, with the animations changing and evolving as they move through them. The central 3D character is a geometric, abstract Griffin, representing the city’s longevity. The accompanying music piece is by Nicola Clifton Perikhanyan, featuring a clarinet instrumental part.

Highwalks

Air & Earth

The artwork portrays the sensation of elevating energy up from the ground and moving freely through the air, inspired by the pedestrian use of the pathways. Grounded and heavy elements are rooted into the path, such as stone and metal emerging from and in between the pavement, giving a sense of power, strength and stability. More delicate shapes, objects and textures form out of this foundation to rise up into the sky, with clean, geometric shapes at ground level becoming more organic and softer as they rise. The 3D character is an abstracted caterpillar that becomes a butterfly, representing the transition from groundedness to flight. The accompanying music piece is by Sam Dinley, featuring a trombone instrumental part.

Participating Guildhall School students:

• Jasmine Meaden: Flute, Salters’ Gardens (working with LSO’s Gareth Davies
• Nicola Clifton Perikhanyan: Clarinet, Roman Ruins  (working with LSO’s Andy Harper)
• Sam Dinley: Trombone, Highwalks (working with LSO’s Jim Maynard)
• Will Davenport: Viola, One London Wall Place Water Feature (working with LSO’s Anna Bastow)

To download the app and find out more about HARMONY, visit play.londonwallplace.com