The Royal College of Music in the U.K. is teaming up with The Innovation Consultancy to develop a new virtual reality environment for musicians and audiences to enjoy from home.

The new technology will immerse audiences at home into famed venues and performance spaces throughout the U.K. providing “users real-time feedback of what they would see and hear, such as walking the width of a stage, or trying out the acoustics at different points in the room.”

“We are very excited about the chance to develop this tool, as it will provide musicians with the opportunity to practice coping with and responding to the visual and auditory features of performance spaces while still in an environment that is safe. As such, this project stands to make a significant contribution to how we teach and train musicians, in the future as well as in the current COVID-19 response,” Project partner Dr. Terry Clark, a Research Fellow in Performance Science said in a press release.

“My experience of working on this project has been truly phenomenal! With the prototype software running on our laptops and a pair of headphones, we were able to practice and perform within simulated acoustics that resembles a concert environment. This greatly increased my practice efficiency as I was able to estimate how the musical ideas would be shaped within the performance venue. Adjusting the parameters also gave me a more comprehensive understanding of the acoustics of my practice and performance. It was like a step into the future of music learning,” added Mutong Shao, an RCM student working on the project with Dr. Clark.

The project has been in the work for over a year-and-a-half with the first rendered location set to be Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall.

The technology is scheduled for release in December 2020 with further renderings of other venues set to commence in 2021.