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You've never been to a venue like this.
A new mid-air concert hall that holds 250 people is opening at The Shed, and it's truly an architectural wonder. With music curated by Carl Craig, Yaeji, Steve Reich, and The xx, plus upcoming performances by Madame Gandhi, yunè pinku, UNIIQU3, and Igor Levit, guests will party like they're inside a disco ball, with 3D sound and light experiences that transcend what experiencing live music can be.
The 65-foot-diameter spherical concert hall is suspended in midair in The Shed’s 115-foot-tall McCourt space. Created by avant-garde consciousness architects Ed Cooke, Merijn Royaards, and Nicholas Christie, the project is based on an idea initially proposed by composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Guests will climb to the Sonic Sphere's listening platform via three flights of stairs, and an accessible lift is also available.
“In a visually orientated age, Sonic Sphere centers the wonder of sound and music in an interdisciplinary experience,” said Alex Poots, The Shed's Artistic Director. “The creative invention and sheer ambition of Sonic Sphere offers such a range of possibilities to explore for years to come.”
The version of Sonic Sphere currently installed at Hudson Yards is the 11th rendition of the Sonic Sphere project, and will be the most advanced so far, following appearances at Chateau du Feÿ’s creative commune in Burgundy, and in London, Mexico, Black Rock City, and Miami.
The concept plays off of lived experiences, including Royaards's early nightlife memories.
“My first experience of clubbing was during a cold winter in early ’90s Rotterdam. The interference patterns of visual, sonic, and kinetic waveform transmissions that flooded the dance floor and enveloped me were deeply transformative. Along the dance floor’s perimeter, bass bins sent out shock waves that rattled your ribcage and tweeter horns above them fired a percussive hailstorm into the twitching crowd. Waveform transmissions collided as ephemeral geometries that liquefied the physical architecture, turning the shadows on the walls into windows to infinity. Sound and space had switched sides; steel and concrete were evanescent, and the DJ was an architect. It was my first experience of how the combined forces of music, light, and collectivity can suspend the laws of physics,” said Royaards. “Sonic Sphere is a sensory laboratory that does exactly that; it bends time, expands consciousness, and punctures our perception of reality.”
Sonic Sphere runs June 9 through July 7. All tickets to Sonic Sphere are general admission and available at theshed.org.