Experiential Orchestra
The Grammy®️-winning Experiential Orchestral (EXO) brings audiences close to the music by engaging listeners through imaginative, immersive, and interactive concert experiences. Founded by Music Director James Blachly in 2009, EXO’s performances and recordings have been described as “strikingly persuasive” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “immaculate” by Musical America, and have been praised for having “luscious tone and poise” by Classics Today. American Counterpoints, released in 2024 on the Bright Shiny Things label, was nominated for two 2025 Grammy® Awards, in EXO's first release since their 2021 Grammy® Award winning world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth's The Prison.
EXO was founded on collaboration and co-creation, and each curated performance is imbued with a generous spirit of celebration, facilitating the exploration of what Blachly calls, “a new experience of sound” by audiences. The orchestra’s performances take place in and outside the concert hall with audiences invited to participate in unorthodox ways. EXO has performed the music of Arvo Pärt in the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, invited audiences to dance during Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at National Sawdust, enveloped the audience in concerts at Lincoln Center with audience and orchestra members sitting together, and presented Symphonie fantastique and Petrushka with circus choreography at The Muse in Brooklyn.
Recent highlights have included a subscription concert at the Phillips Collection, in an immersive performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs Reimagined with cellist Andrew Yee and soprano Sarah Brailey, in the New York and Washington D.C. premiere of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto with soloist Curtis Stewart, and in an immersive evening of reflection at Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Following the release of American Counterpoints, EXO partnered with Videmus to organize the largest celebration of Julia Perry in the world, in honor of her centenary. The Julia Perry Centenary Celebration & Festival brought more than 100 performers, scholars, and leaders in musicology to venues across New York City, including Le Poisson Rouge, The New School, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall.
EXO is known for imaginative and groundbreaking programming that frequently advocates for under-celebrated masterpieces and composers. The orchestra’s world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison (1930) was released on Chandos Records in 2020 to international critical acclaim in The New York Times, Gramophone, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and many other publications. The album won the Grammy®️ for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album in 2021 – the first Grammy ever awarded for Smyth’s music. EXO’s world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Curtis Stewart, will be released on the Bright Shiny Things label in March 2024.
EXO is led by Music Director James Blachly and General Manager Raphaele de Boisblanc.