Water Philharmonic is a new cultural work that translates the living electrical signals of water into musical data, allowing a river to perform an orchestra of physical instruments in real time — creating beautiful, ethereal, and emotional music composed by the water itself.
At the heart of Water Philharmonic is H₂Orchestra — a technology developed in California over more than three years to transform the changing electrical biodata of water into live musical information.
Sensors immersed in the water continuously measure fluctuations in its electrical conductivity, capturing a constantly changing stream of live biodata. H₂Orchestra translates these changes in real time into MIDI notes, velocity, timing and control signals that can perform an entire orchestra of physical instruments.
Grand pianos play themselves. Strings are mechanically plucked, struck and vibrated. Air moves through real organ pipes. Bells, gongs and percussion are physically struck. Voices emerge and transform. Every sound and movement is driven by the electrical biodata coming from the body of water itself.
There is no conventional human orchestra.
We design the instruments, tuning, harmonic world and emotional architecture. Within that world, the river determines the performance in real time.
Niall Donnelly is an Irish-American entrepreneur and technologist who has spent more than three years developing the biodata, musical and technological systems behind Water Philharmonic in California.
Previously, he co-founded and led one of the world's largest internet security and privacy platforms, raising more than $70 million and building technology used by more than 250 million people worldwide.
Over the past 20 years, Niall has built technology companies alongside experience-driven arts and entertainment projects, including a 10,000-square-foot Los Angeles cultural music venue he founded and created in partnership with Rolling Stone magazine.
Water Philharmonic brings those worlds together — technology, music, culture, physical experience and water — to create an entirely new form of live cultural experience.