Telefónica and the Reina Sofía School are testing a system in Madrid that captures audience emotions in real-time and projects them onto the orchestral performance.
Classical music concerts usually start with a request to turn off mobile phones. Last Saturday 3rd October, at the Teatro Monumental in Madrid, the opposite occurred: nearly one thousand attendees listened to the Fourth Symphony by Johannes Brahms and, before the first note sounded, participated from their phones in a live dynamic. The initiative, organised by Telefónica and the Reina Sofía School of Music, aims to test a use of artificial intelligence to express what the audience feels and for the orchestra to receive it. According to blogthinkbig.com, the goal was not to impress with technology, but to listen to the audience.
The session began like any other, with the presenter introducing the piece. During that introduction, questions were posed and the attendees responded without leaving their seats. The organisers kept the format of the dynamic secret until the concert began to preserve the element of surprise. What was known was the goal: to translate the audience's emotions into the orchestra's performance. On stage, a group of about 60 musicians from the School, conducted by Josep Pons, performed Brahms' work. The participation did not replace the music; it served as a bridge between those listening and those playing.
This bridge is built by artificial intelligence. When the entire audience responds simultaneously from their mobiles, the system collects the answers in real-time, processes them, and converts them into a collective reaction that is reflected on stage. A common image is applause: each person claps in their own way, but what is heard is the sum of all. Here, something similar happens, only with responses instead of claps. The AI takes care of that sum: it combines what each attendee feels and turns it into a unique collective voice that reaches the musicians. Technical details of the system are not known, such as the type of model or how the responses are grouped. However, these details are not necessary to understand the essence: the technology does not compete with the orchestra; it merely processes what the audience says with a speed that a person could not match.
With so many mobiles connected at once, the network is the unseen part that can fail the most. A full theatre is a demanding environment for any network because many people share the same space and use their mobiles almost simultaneously. If the responses arrive late, the collective reaction loses its meaning, as it no longer corresponds to what the audience felt at that moment. Therefore, the dynamic depends on stable connectivity and an almost immediate response, although no one in the hall notices it. This is what distinguishes this experience from any voting via an app: here, participation occurs live, during the session, and every second of delay is noticeable.
Telefónica had already brought connectivity to the stage at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, where a private 5G network enabled drones and holograms at the opening concert of its centenary. On this occasion, Telefónica's Brand Director, Rafael Fernández de Alarcón, presents the project as a matter of access: the company wants to be the channel through which citizens reach digital technologies. The idea is for technology to arrive without people having to think about it. In the hall, this translates to a thousand people being able to participate simultaneously without interruptions.
The concert has a long-standing relationship behind it. Telefónica has been a patron of the Telefónica Violin Chair at the Reina Sofía School of Music since 1999, one of the leading institutions in musical training worldwide. The violin is the instrument with the most musicians in a symphony orchestra, which is why this chair holds significant weight within the School. During this time, both entities have launched other cultural dissemination projects with the same goal: to connect people through music.
A symphonic concert has always been understood as an event where some play and others listen in silence. This format maintains that scheme but opens a channel for participation so that the audience can express itself before the music begins. It remains to be seen whether this participation changes the way of listening and if such formats find a place in other auditoriums. For now, the proposal raises a simple question: what happens when the audience has something to say before the first note sounds.
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