Dawn of A New Spirit

Last month at Frieze Seoul, The Balvenie launched their oldest single malt Scotch whisky - their 88-year-old - with the first in a global series of launch events entitled Dawn Of Our Spirit.

Here. was engaged as global creative and technical partner across sound, with an overarching brief to pair powerful sonic storytelling with an immersive, hi-fi listening experience.

As an ambitious exercise in artful theatre, sound plays a central role in the staging of the launch series, shaping the audience journey throughout, and driving the choreography, narrative and tone of the show-piece performance at the heart of the experience.

Guests enter the event space through a physical ‘tunnel’ of barley with an ambient soundscape - recorded in the barley fields above the distillery in Dufftown - designed to deliver an early evocation of place, transporting the audience from the cityscape into The Balvenie’s own world.

Within the main spaces, the conceptual narrative - Eight Perspectives Of Time, told through the lens of the eight-decade whisky-making process – emerges.

We created a deep, neutral drone to establish atmosphere across the spaces whilst allowing ‘expressive headroom' for the narrative-driven musical soundtrack to deliver strong, thematic characterisation across the eight chapters of the performance itself.

Dawn. Patience. Stewardship. Impermanence. Resilience. Cycles. Intuition. Spirit.

The original music composed across the 25-minute performance sequence creates a soundtrack that evolves through meditative, elegant, frenetic and emotive moments. Performers take to the ‘grain canvas’ – a circular stage space on a bed of barley grain - moving across and through it to create patterns in the barley as visual evocations of each perspective of time. The reveal of The Balvenie’s 88-year-old in its sculptural cradle is the culmination of the performance.

The positive reception from audiences in Seoul is testament to The Balvenie’s commitment and conviction in delivering a meaningful, memorable experience that transcends traditional whisky culture. Taipei and Shanghai are to follow.