STAGE TUBE: Reimagined Cello Featured in New Short Film with BBC Proms and 59 Productions

Multi award-winning artists 59 Productions, the team behind the video design of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, have joined forces with the BBC Proms and internationally acclaimed cellist, Sol Gabetta, to create a brand new film, 'Cello', to celebrate the 2016 BBC Proms season. The film, and a 'making of' video, will be featured on the BBC Proms website and BBC iPlayer as well as shared widely on social media platforms.

Check out a sneak peek below!

The film offers a tantalising taster ahead of the First Night of the BBC Proms on Friday 15 July, when Sol Gabetta will make her highly-anticipated debut performing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor.

Recorded at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House, the film features Sol Gabetta performing the opening of the concerto as her cello is transformed by a series of bespoke animations created by 59 Productions that respond to and evolve with Elgar's richly sonorous score.

World-renowned for creating spectacular public artwork projection mapping some of the world's most iconic buildings - from the Sydney Opera House to Edinburgh's Usher Hall and the United Nations Headquarters in New York - Sol Gabetta's cello is the smallest object 59 Productions has ever projection mapped, made more complex by the instrument's subtle motion. Using cutting-edge techniques including infra-red cameras which track where the cello is in 3D space, the projections seamlessly adhere to the surface of the cello to stunning visual effect.

David Pickard, Director of BBC Proms: "It is exciting for us to approach music from a different angle - adding a visual element which is not only striking in itself, but which also enhances the aural experience. I hope that lovers of both film and music will be intrigued and inspired by what has been created."

Richard Slaney, Creative Director of 59 Productions: "We wanted to show the diversity and the range of the cello, and we thought it would be fun to show that in a really visual way so we decided to projection map Sol's cello and use it as a visual storytelling device to accompany the music."

BBC Proms
As the world's biggest classical music festival, the BBC Proms offers eight weeks of world-class music-making from a vast array of leading orchestras, conductors and soloists from the UK and around the world. Across more than 90 concerts - and a similar number of free events designed to extend and further enrich the audience's Proms experience - the festival aims to offer a summer of music that allows for the most diverse and exciting musical journeys. More than 120 years since it was founded, the driving factor in building a festival of this scale is to offer exceptional music-making at the lowest possible prices, continuing founder-conductor Henry Wood's original ambition of bringing the best classical music to the widest possible audience. With every Prom broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and many televised on the BBC, the Proms reaches far and beyond the Royal Albert Hall.

59 Productions is the multi award-winning company of artists behind the video design of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Tony Award-winning An American in Paris currently running on Broadway, globe-trotting smash hit, War Horse, and record-breaking David Bowie is exhibition. 59 Productions combine technology and art to tell amazing stories. Led by Creative Directors Leo Warner, Mark Grimmer, Lysander Ashton, Richard Slaney and Ben Pearcy, they are world leaders specialising in design for stage and live events. Since 2006, 59 Productions has mounted more than 120 productions across the world at venues including the National Theatre, Royal Court, Young Vic, the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, New York's Metropolitan Opera as well as at theatre festivals in Salzburg, Berlin and Avignon.

This summer, 59 Productions return to the Edinburgh International Festival with Standard Life Opening Event: Deep Time as newly-appointed Associate Artists to the International Festival for the next three years. In 2015, they opened the Festival under its then newly-appointed Director, Fergus Linehan, with The Harmonium Project, a free outdoor event marking the 50th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus led by 59 Productions' Richard Slaney. It brought crowds of almost 20,000 people into Festival Square and Lothian Road to see a spectacular audio-visual transformation of Usher Hall set to John Adams' choral piece, Harmonium. Standard Life Opening Event: Deep Time is a free, outdoor artwork which will see the western façade of Edinburgh Castle and Castle Rock used as the canvas for digitally animated projections inspired by Edinburgh's 350 million year history, set to a specially compiled soundtrack by Scottish rock band Mogwai. Celebrating the start of Edinburgh's summer festival season, the event takes place on Sunday 7 August, at 10.30pm and can be viewed from a specially-created arena on Castle Terrace.