{"id":252390,"date":"2026-04-16T10:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:43:00","slug":"austin-symphony-dirty-projectors-team-up-to-perform-at-fusebox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/252390\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Symphony, Dirty Projectors team up to perform at Fusebox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the performing arts, the message has been \u201cadapt or die\u201d in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs an orchestra, we have to be careful not to get sucked into the sands of history and make sure that we&#8217;re moving forward and creating a living, breathing art form,\u201d Justus Zimmerman, CEO of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, said during a recent rehearsal.<\/p>\n<p>One way it\u2019s doing that is by working with the Dirty Projectors to bring to life the indie rock band&#8217;s latest album, Song of the Earth. Musicians from across the country will gather on stage at the Long Center to perform the piece Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPart of this collaboration is about saying classical music isn\u2019t just old dead music. It\u2019s new, it\u2019s happening, it\u2019s being created today,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cWe\u2019re still adapting; we\u2019re still creating new experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Song of the Earth is new for the band, too.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI almost don\u2019t know how to describe it. \u2026 I think it\u2019s gonna be indescribable,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201c\u200aI think people have a perception of what a symphony is. People have a perception of what the Dirty Projectors are. This is gonna be different from both of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The show is the headlining performance of <a href=\"https:\/\/fuseboxlive.com\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fusebox Festival<\/a>, a biennial event that brings five days of live performances in visual art, film, literature and music across the city.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to a conversation with Ron Berry, founder and co-artistic director of Fusebox Festival<\/p>\n<p>Ron Berry, founder and co-artistic director of the festival, said this collaboration will be unique to Austin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019ll have these really cool harmonies that [Dirty Projectors] are known for,\u201d he said. \u201cBut then that\u2019ll be accompanied by and textured with this incredible orchestral music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It takes lots of moving pieces to get this show together. There are the musicians in the symphony, band members, expert percussionists and conductor Peter Bay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has a big sound, epic in scale,\u201d Berry said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really expensive to do this thing, it\u2019s a big undertaking. \u2026 It just might not ever happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adapt or die<\/p>\n<p>Classical music is having a moment, and the Austin Symphony is living up to the city\u2019s claim to fame.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to prove that the \u2018Live Music Capital\u2019 goes all the way down,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cIt includes classical music; it includes orchestral music.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While older generations are \u201cvery into classical music,\u201d Zimmerman said, it\u2019s hard to get Gen X and millennials into the music hall. He, himself, is a millennial.<\/p>\n<p>But the younger generation is on board \u2014 in part, he says, because of their exposure to video games and movie soundtracks.<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"A band plays with the symphony on a stage. \"  width=\"880\" height=\"587\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776336180_174_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Lorianne Willett<\/p>\n<p>\/<\/p>\n<p>KUT News <\/p>\n<p>The Austin Symphony Orchestra and Dirty Projectors will perform the album Song of the Earth at the Long Center on Thursday night. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I meet Gen Z folks, they have so much more of a grounding in orchestral music than I ever did growing up,\u201d he said. \u201cGrowing up, nobody listened to movie soundtracks, or the people that did were weird. Now, it\u2019s totally acceptable as a legit form of art.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Austin Symphony has been adapting to this interest. As part of its <a href=\"https:\/\/austinsymphony.org\/events\/tickets\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Butler Pops Series<\/a>, you can watch a movie while the orchestra plays the score live. So far, the symphony has performed during Star Wars, Home Alone and Pirates of the Caribbean.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes your breath away,\u201d Zimmerman said. \u201cPeople sit for the whole credits and listen to all the music, and then the screen goes up and they see this giant orchestra on stage. You can hear the audience just kind of erupt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said events like these \u2013 and the one the symphony is hosting with Dirty Projectors \u2013 are what\u2019s keeping orchestras center stage.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Song of the Earth\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>David Longstreth, who founded Dirty Projectors, composed the new album. He said the show will include a string quintet, a wind and brass quintet, three percussionists and three female vocalists. Longstreth will also sing and play the guitar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Dirty Projectors] has been my vehicle for music. It&#8217;s gone through many different incarnations,\u201d he said. \u201cSong of the Earth is maybe the wildest of the incarnations yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Much of the inspiration behind the album came during the COVID-19 pandemic while Longstreth was on lockdown in his Los Angeles home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn that strange, suspended place,\u201d he said, \u201cI think a lot of us felt sort of floating, or like, estranged from what had been our prior routines and selves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On top of that, 2020 brought record-setting wildfires throughout the state of California.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt one point, when my wife was pregnant, the smoke in our neighborhood was inescapable,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was an experience that made a big impression on both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He wanted to distill those feelings \u2013 his relationship with nature and with things out of his control \u2013 into music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re at the mercy of Earth,\u201d Longstreth said. \u201cWe have this fantasy of having created civilization on top of it, but perhaps that is all a bit more tenuous and fragile than we might\u2019ve imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The album has moments of wonder, mystery and relief. There are also moments of anger, danger and anxiety.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cArt is pointless,\u201d Longstreth said. \u201cI think that we have to choose it, and I&#8217;m so excited that Austin is choosing this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the performing arts, the message has been \u201cadapt or die\u201d in recent years. \u201cAs an orchestra, we&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4001,5350,95458,95459,92166,95461,57130,95460,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-252390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-austin-symphony-orchestra","12":"tag-classical-music","13":"tag-david-longstreth","14":"tag-dirty-projectors","15":"tag-fusebox-festival","16":"tag-indie-rock","17":"tag-long-center","18":"tag-song-of-the-earth","19":"tag-tx"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}