How can a symphony orchestra be encountered beyond the distance of a concert seat or a flat screen? With the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR), Cybel’Art developed Virtual Hall®, an immersive experience that brings audiences close to the musicians through volumetric capture and spatial audio. It reflects Cybel’Art’s AR and VR practice: connecting human presence, technology and new cultural uses.
Preserving a performance in space
The OSR, a musical institution associated with Geneva and Victoria Hall, was recorded during a production combining synchronised 360-degree cameras with spatial sound recording. The aim is not to replace the concert. It is to preserve a performance so it can be revisited from an unusual viewpoint: within the ensemble. The musicians’ gestures, the conductor’s direction and the orchestra’s layout become points of reference that visitors can explore around them.
The people seen in this experience are not characters generated for the project. They are OSR musicians as captured during the recording session. Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu, Cybel’Art’s founder, frames this as a way for technology to serve human expression and to create a digital record of a performance. The approach connects with work around the icologram® protocol, which focuses on the spatial representation of real presences and performances.
Moving from a physical setting to a virtual one
Virtual Hall® can be presented in physical installations using an augmented-reality plaque or a high-definition printed support. A QR code then guides visitors to the required applications. The Real Illusions augmented-reality engine is credited as a technical partner for these professional XR deployments. This connection between a tangible support and a digital environment creates a phygital route into listening and spatial exploration.
Keeping that route understandable remains a practical concern: an installation should help visitors access the experience without making the technology an end in itself. This type of installation belongs to the wider range of cultural and immersive formats developed by Cybel’Art.
A defined product, separate from a broader vision
Virtual Hall® is presented here as an immersive symphonic experience dedicated to the OSR. It should not be conflated with the .icolo hub or with its other brands and services, including icolocard®. Those distinct areas are outlined on Cybel’Art’s brands page.
The purpose is not to promise that a virtual environment is equivalent to a concert hall. It is to offer another relationship to a captured interpretation: closer to the orchestra, attentive to the relationships between performers, and available beyond the viewpoint of a seated audience member. The collaborations mentioned with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra extend this exploration of immersive forms for classical music.
Editorial adaptation of the article by Pierluigi Christophe Orunesu, originally published on Substack on 5 July 2026. Read the original article on Substack