City of Floating Sounds

Huang Ruo

You begin your journey at one of several meeting points across the city. Guided by a specially designed mobile app, you move through the streets while listening to fragments of a work by composer Huang Ruo, whose opera M. Butterfly  you can discover this season at La Monnaie.

As you walk, the music shifts and expands. When you come closer to other participants, new musical layers emerge, enriching the city’s shared soundscape. The route you choose and the people you encounter shape a personal listening experience. Brussels becomes the instrument, revealing itself in a new light.

Gradually, the different routes converge towards Bozar. There, the fragments heard along the way unfold to reach their full form: the music comes alive on stage, performed by 80 musicians of the Belgian National Orchestra under the direction of Jessica Cottis, the ‘mayor’ of this temporary sonic city. What began as an individual journey through Brussels becomes a powerful collective moment as the full score takes shape.

Part sound walk, part urban exploration and part symphonic concert, City of Floating Sounds pushes the boundaries of classical performance and invites you to experience the city – and its inhabitants – through sound.