The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director, Marin Alsop, challenged students from Parsons and Mannes College The New School for Music to reimagine the future of orchestral performance. The resulting work will debut in an event that brings together music, fashion and technology in new and innovative ways. This upcoming Parsons Festival kickoff event: “The Future of Orchestral Garments,” may be sold out to the public, but you can enjoy a look inside the classroom of this exciting collab!

The year-long collaboration is led by fashion designer and School of Design Strategies faculty Gabi Asfour of threeASFOUR, and wearable technology designer and AMT faculty, Sabine Seymour, with support from Richard Kessler, dean of Mannes College. The fashions, designed by students in the Integrated Design program, bring together new and vintage garments to create performance wear that is sustainable and responsive to the way musicians move and play. Wearable technology, designed by AMT students, is being incorporated into several of the looks. This technology will demonstrate how performance can be enhanced by new means of visual expression, with the garments and performance space serving as a canvas for motion and sound-activated digital projections. Check out more photos and notes from the students on their class blog.