Sarah Brailey, Dashon Burton, Experiential Orchestra & James Blachly
Biography Sarah Brailey, Dashon Burton, Experiential Orchestra & James Blachly
The Experiential Orchestra
was founded by conductor James Blachly as a way to invite audiences more deeply into the sound and powerful experience of the symphony orchestra. As quoted in Symphony Magazine, Blachly says, “We try and keep it fresh for everybody. We are not trying to displace the standard concert experience, but invite people in so that when they next attend a traditional concert they hear things differently.”
Recent concerts have been presented at Roulette and National Sawdust in Brooklyn, Lincoln Center with Young Patrons of Lincoln Center, Americas Society, and in partnership with Musicambia and Groupmuse at the Masonic Temple; concerts have also been presented at Penn State University, American University, and the Phillips Collection in Washington DC.
EXO started in 2009 with what were called "Loft Parties," intimate orchestra concerts that brought the orchestra up close with an audience of 100 jammed into a midtown loft. A wild party always ensued after performances, and soon audience members were invited to sit in and among the orchestra. “I wanted people to feel the music in a new way," Conductor James Blachly says.
This emphasis on the feeling of the sound of an orchestra also forms the basis of their "Listening Concerts," in which audience members surround and are surrounded by the orchestra in different ways. Lincoln Center hosted EXO in 2016 in a sold-out concert called "Listening 101," with responses such as this one, followed the next season by “An Introduction to Beethoven,” in which EXO traced the creative arc of Beethoven’s career through excerpts of all 9 Symphonies (and yes, the audience joined the orchestra for the 9th!)
For several years, EXO's signature event was their singular Rite of Spring Dance Party, which invites the audience to dance to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and which one enthusiastic audience member called “the future of classical music.”
As a way to go deeper with select audiences, EXO also started offering boutique private concerts incorporating these full-body listening concepts, with James Blachly's inimitable invitation to make the music accessible and impactful.
All concerts feature some experiential quality. Founder James Blachly says "my sense is that in this age of technology and speed, we crave full-body experiences that sweep us up and where we are invited to hold nothing back. I've always said there is no bigger experience in sound than a live symphony orchestra, and I want to open up that experience for new audiences and have them fall in love with the music on their own terms and through their own joy and wonder and awe."
The orchestra is drawn from top-level New York freelancers, with members of Decoda, Musicians from Marlboro, Canadian Brass and other elite ensembles in principal positions.
James Blachly
is a conductor dedicated to artistic excellence and broader accessibility. In addition to frequent guest conducting appearances, he currently serves as Music Director of the Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Experiential Orchestra. Dedicated to finding new ways of empowering audiences, he is also in demand as a speaker on Listening as Leadership, bringing his expertise as a conductor and passion for music to Fortune 500 companies, schools, and other organizations.
Mr. Blachly’s innovative programming aims to increase audience engagement and empower audiences. With the Johnstown Symphony, he conducted the orchestra in a former steel mill in a concert that was featured on Katie Couric’s America Inside Out, and in three seasons the orchestras has increased season ticket sales by 43%; with the Experiential Orchestra, he has invited audiences to dance to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, sit within the orchestra at Lincoln Center, and engage with Symphonie fantastique and Petrouchka with circus choreography in an ongoing collaboration with The Muse in Brooklyn.
A strong supporter of composers of our time, Mr. Blachly has commissioned and premiered more than 40 works from composers such as Jessie Montgomery, Courtney Bryan, Kate Copeland Ettinger, Patrick Castillo, Viet Cuong, Brad and Doug Balliett, and many others. In recent seasons, he has collaborated with soloists Julia Bullock, Andrés Cárdenes, Michael Chioldi, Karen Kim, Andrew Yee, Owen Dalby, Janna Baty, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, and more.
He was the only conductor from the U.S. invited to participate in the 1st Annual Young Conductor’s Showcase as a part of El Sistema’s 40th Anniversary celebration, and he was also the only U.S. conductor to be invited as Conducting Fellow in Maestra Marin Alsop's final year at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music. Recent guest conducting engagements include Spokane Symphony, Danbury Symphony, Odyssey Opera (Boston), Trinity Church Wall Street (New York City), and performances at Roulette, National Sawdust, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.
He is proud to be named as editor for Critical Performing edition of Dame Ethel Smyth’s career-culminating masterpiece, The Prison, available through Wise Music Classical. EXO’s release of The Prison is available on Chandos Records.
Dedicated to music education, he regularly conducts workshops and clinics for the New York Philharmonic, and served as Ensemble Director for the Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids program. From 2010 to 2015, he performed benefit concerts of Mahler symphonies with New York freelancers to launch what is now Make Music NOLA, a thriving El Sistema-Inspired program in New Orleans.
He studied with Donald Schleicher and trained with Larry Rachleff, and served for two years as the Zander Fellow for the Boston Philharmonic.
Also active as a composer, he studied at Mannes with Robert Cuckson and privately with Charles Wuorinen and John Corigliano. His compositions have been celebrated as “vigorous and assured” by Chamber Music America, and a “splendidly crafted…tour de force” by the Miami Herald Tribune, and have been performed at The Stone, Zankel Hall, in Europe and across the US, in an audience for the Pope, and broadcast live on the CBC.
