For just over three months during autumn and winter, visitors to the South Bank Centre in London can experience a virtual reality piano concert featuring an avatar of internationally-recognised pianist Yuja Wang.
Playing with Fire: An Immersive Odyssey sees visitors wearing a VR headset for the 45-minute performance, where they are treated to a dazzling selection of classical works, handpicked by Yuja Wang herself, and performed on a real, self-playing Steinway Spirio piano.
Visitors can either walk freely around the space and explore the virtual, evolving animations, or take a seat and be absorbed in the whole performance.
This is by far the first immersive concert Wang has been involved with. In 2023, she collaborated with painter David Hockney at the Lightroom in London, where she played piano before an audience surrounded by large-scale 360-degree projections of Hockney’s artwork.
The Playing with Fire concerts began last year, where carefully selected scents were also used to enhance the multisensory experience, and has been performed in other locations including the Festival de Cannes Immersive Competition, and in Shanghai.
All the creative content in Playing with Fire is original, although AI was used to support production and scaling.
Tickets start at £26 and the performance runs until 3rd January 2027.
