Students from Leicester College have helped to create ‘The Space Scratch Symphony’, a world-first immersive musical and visual production that will receive its world premiere performance at De Montfort Hall in Leicester on 25 June 2024.

This new symphony is a specially commissioned piece for symphony orchestra, choir and turntables, composed by Elizabeth Kelly and Jon1st, with Leicestershire Music and the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra (LSSO). The piece has been supported by Algoriddim and Leicester College / National Space Centre BTEC Immersive Media Extended Diploma Level 3 students who have produced four animations to provide a visual backdrop to the orchestrated music.

The world premiere performance will take place as part of Leicestershire Music’s Out of this World concert, an evening of space-related music performed by young people from Leicester and Leicestershire.

Tickets are available at www.demontforthall.co.uk/event/out-of-this-world/

Iman Mangrolia-Jeppesen is on the BTEC Immersive Media Extended Diploma Level 3 at Leicester College and is helping with the visuals for the project. She said: “It’s a very different brief. Having the premiere in Leicester and then shown around the country is a very exciting experience and I’m very proud to be part of it.

“It gives us the experience of working together creatively in a major group, as well as insight into how the animations work in the actual industry.”

Leicester College students have been story boarding, concepting, pre-producing, filming, generating 3D Assets, editing timelines and using C++ to construct a visual experience for each of the four movements within the symphony, using software like Blender, Unreal Engine and Adobe Premiere. Students specialised into the specific software and workflows key for their future careers and developed portfolio pieces that show them as graduates with great promise. The students self-directed and organised their classes into professional production studios and have worked as a tight team to produce some truly awesome animation and interactive content.

Rob Hansel, Programme Area Manager – Digital Arts and Fashion at Leicester College added: “We’re so proud of all of the students who’ve worked collaboratively on this brief to create a set of visual animations that really complement the incredible musical score. We can’t wait to see how it looks in the De Montfort Hall staging.”