Virtualis – a medieval word with ties to many different modern words like Virtual, Virtuoso, Virtues – is a collaboration between percussion professor Philippe Spiesser and composer/developer Jesper Nordin. The world they are exploring involves virtual instruments performed by gestures and is rooted in musical traditions from diverse areas and epochs. In a virtual world these genres meets, blends and gets manipulated in realtime by the percussion/electronic soloist Spiesser.

The role of the ensemble will be providing the coherent context that incorporates all the different expressions and merges them into a living soundscape that can interact with both the acoustic and the digital instruments of the soloist.

The technology Gestrument, developed by Jesper Nordin, will be used to extend the possibilities of the soloist. It has recently been used in the project Dream with Epic Games, Royal Shakespeare Company and Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, where one of the actors who used the technology described it as ”it feels like we have magical powers”.

Virtualis was commissioned by Norrbotten NEO

First performed 23 October 2022 by Norbotten NEO in Luleå, Sweden