Bicontinental Bavarian living in Santa Barbara. Classical music and nature enthusiast. Immersive technology company founder.

Extended reality (XR) - just as classical music - is a powerful immersive medium. Today we see the beginnings of XR being used to telling stories that bring people closer to experiencing what it feels like to be a musician and to perform on stage.

Immersive technology projects by the Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sydney Opera, and the ever pionieering Björk show how XR can be applied toward breaking down cultural barriers that have kept classical music insulated from too many societal groups.

I feel lucky to have spent more than a decade of my professional career each in classical music and in XR, gaining a dual perspective on what immersive technologies can and can’t do for the classical music world.

What makes immersive technology so powerful is 'presence' - the experience of being enveloped by a compellingly realistic 3D world. XR’s power to evoke 'presence' is why I call it the ultimate human-machine interface.

The opportunities for classical music organizations to leverage immersive technology across live events, brand management, and education will be enormous as consumer XR devices reach critical mass. Classical music organizations will reach broader subscription audiences by streaming immersive concerts into living rooms via 360° video and spatialized sound technologies; concert goers will teleport themselves directly to front-row-seats and even onstage. In visual arts, museums will enrich physical exhibition spaces with augmented reality information; visitors will curate their own personalized virtual exhibit tours in limitless spaces; and composers as well as visual artists will conquer immersive technology as its own art form.

Today I’m part of this journey as a consultant to some of the pioneering organizations paving the way.