The Visual Listening Guides, created by Hannah Chan-Hartley, through her company, Symphony Graphique (www.symphonygraphique.com) offer a new way to visually understand and enjoy a range of well-known musical compositions.

The Visual Listening Guides are an award-winning vibrant, four-colour, printed system which has been successfully employed by a number of professional symphony orchestras, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, in their concert programmes, as well as online, to easily illustrate how a major musical composition is put together. Through a simple and easily understandable graphic design, the structure and map of the composition is discovered.

Now with added augmented reality--to create the AR Listening Guides—the printed pages can launch brief audio clips at key sections, and the musical works come to life, with their structure highlighted and revealed. Video can also be included—offering interviews with performers, conductors, and other artists.

In partnership with Symphony Graphique, Immersive Publishing will work with orchestras and recording companies to ensure permission and related copyrights are covered, to create this unique learning experience.

The Visual Listening Guides have already become important features of concert programmes for a number of professional symphony orchestras. Including audio and video augmented reality features in the printed concert programme will benefit an orchestra’s educational and outreach initiatives, gain valuable attention from the performing arts market, and from the widespread tech and digital community.

The AR Listening Guides can be especially valuable before (with ticket sales) or after a concert for further understanding and enjoyment of the performance. In addition to placement of the AR Listening Guides in concert programmes, going forward we will also explore possible book publishing opportunities, gathering together a selection of AR Listening Guides into one volume, which will be of interest to the student and concert enthusiast.