Pianist Yuja Wang's PLAYING WITH FIRE: AN IMMERSIVE ODYSSEY is Now at Philharmonie de Paris

A bold reimagining of the classical concert experience has made its world premiere at Musée de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris. The pioneering immersive installation Playing with Fire: An Immersive Odyssey with Yuja Wang is an innovative combination of live piano performance, visual art, mixed reality and virtual reality technologies, and spatialised sound, pushing the boundaries of musical performance and conjuring a fascinating dialogue between the physical and virtual realms that explores the relationship between sound and image, as well as the interplay between music, poetry and art. The multi-user, location-based experience is open to visitors now through 3 May 2026, before touring internationally at Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in February 2026 and at London’s Southbank Centre in fall 2026 as part of the institution’s 75th anniversary season, with further venues to be announced.

Playing with Fire demonstrates the power of immersive mediums to enable new kinds of interactive, multisensory experiences for audiences to share collectively. Written and directed by acclaimed film and immersive director Pierre-Alain Giraud (winner of the Best Immersive Work Award at Cannes 2024), the project is produced by VIVE Arts, the global arts and technology initiative that supports artistic experimentation with nascent technologies, and Atlas V, award-winning immersive and narrative-driven production company, in collaboration with production partner Lightroom, a London-based home for spectacular immersive shows from the world’s leading creative minds.

To bring the project to life, Yuja Wang collaborated with an artistic team including Pierre-Alain Giraud and Icelandic visual artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir—longtime creative partners whose joint work has been presented at the Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennale and Frieze Art Fair—as well as Academy Award-winning sound designer Nicolas Becker. The experience was created using 360-degree volumetric video capture and recordings of Yuja’s playing and voice, combined with advanced spatial audio, surrealistic animated visuals, and the cutting edge of immersive technologies using VIVE Focus Vision headsets.

Yuja Wang said: “As a performer, I am constantly seeking new ways to connect emotionally and creatively with audiences through music. In this vein, I am immensely curious about the evolution and potential of technology: how it changes our daily lives, enables new forms of art, and can push the boundaries of how we experience music. I have found so much inspiration from joining forces previously with artists like the legendary David Hockney and now collaborating with the talented creatives and technologists behind this project. To be able to marry art and technology with this new immersive installation is really a dream come true.”

Pierre-Alain Giraud said: "Working with Yuja Wang has been both an honor and a joy. She shatters all preconceptions about classical music and embodies everything that the greatest music can be—vibrant, bold, universal. Through Playing with Fire, we create an experience that matches her spirit: using cutting-edge technology not as a gimmick, but as a way to reveal how each piece connects to our universal human stories. This project extends my 15-year collaboration with Icelandic artist Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, whose surrealist paintings of fire, water and organic forms provide the perfect visual language for our journey, combining mixed reality with the physical presence of a Steinway piano and Yuja's extraordinary performance."

Olivier Mantei, Managing Director of Philharmonie de Paris, said: “Yuja Wang does us the great pleasure of returning to the Philharmonie de Paris every season. This exhibition offers a new way to experience her music—through an immersive and sensory approach that brings us closer to her performance than a traditional concert ever could, even in a chamber music setting. With VIVE Arts and Atlas V, we are presenting a visual and sound creation that captures the energy and brilliance of Yuja Wang’s playing, and offers a new perspective on the concert experience. We thank them, along with all our partners, for making this opportunity possible.”

Celina Yeh, Executive Director of VIVE Arts, said, “VIVE Arts’ mission is to support groundbreaking projects where immersive technologies open new dimensions of artistic engagement. Playing with Fire not only showcases technical innovation, but channels it into a powerful, intimate encounter with the creative process of one of the world’s most prodigious performers. Yuja’s expressive range, unparalleled technical virtuosity and electrifying stage presence makes her the ideal artist for this kind of exploration, where performance, spatial computing, immersive sound, and lush visual storytelling converge to allow audiences to experience music viscerally as it’s felt from the inside out, expanding the possibilities of how we engage with performance.”

Antoine Cayrol, CEO of Atlas V, said: "Playing with Fire is a bold fusion of visionary creativity and cutting-edge technology, uniting some of the most inspiring voices in digital art and music. Driven by advanced interactive mixed reality, this immersive experience takes audiences on a deeply emotional and sensory journey—where music becomes a living, breathing force. With original spatial design that fully surrounds the listener, Playing with Fire transforms music from a background element into the beating heart of the story, setting a new standard for immersive art and entertainment."

Playing with Fire is the latest in a series of Paris-based initiatives from VIVE Arts, including Versailles: Lost Gardens of the Sun King, on view now through 4 January 2026, and La Magie Opéra, the inaugural production in an ongoing partnership with the Paris Opera, which debuted from May through August 2025.

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