Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Satya Hinduja join forces for Luton concert

The audience at St Mary's Church in Luton wore eye masks so they could focus on listening

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has performed a debut collaboration in Luton where the audience wear masks to get them "in tune" with the Earth.

The free concert at St Mary's Church was part of a project exploring how sound can improve personal wellbeing.

Harmony of the Worlds combined Beethoven's 6th Symphony with Essence by Satya Hinduja and aimed to provide "a calmer state of being".

Hinduja said it was "beautiful" to see the audience so "immersed".

The weekend's performance featured Beethoven's symphony in the middle of Hinduja's composition, which is subtitled "Essence, 136.10 Hz - The Earth's Primal Frequency".

She said that frequency directly represents, in sound, the annual journey of the Earth around the Sun.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was conducted by David Murphy

The work is part of her Alchemic Sonic Environment project, which she described as a "multi-sensory deep listening experience".

Hinduja said the work was designed to put listeners "in tune" with the Earth's resonance - or its rhythm as it rotates.

Composer Satya Hinduja said it was "beautiful" to see the audience so "immersed"

She said the audience wore eye masks so they could focus on listening and so experienced a "sound field".

Hinduja said that everything in nature has vibration within it and throughout history sound has been "critical in helping humans interact and understand themselves" as they align with the natural rhythm of the Earth, but we are "being taken away from nature as we are so busy".

Ms Hinduja said if you focus on listening you "feel less anxiety and have a much calmer state of being"

"[At the performance] people start to understand that although we listen to sound all our lives, we don't really hear it," she said.

"They feel more connected in this immersive experience, it's a transformational journey, people start to understand that we are all one as human beings.

"If you focus on listening, you become one with the space, you release endorphins, feel less anxiety and have a much calmer state of being."

Harmony of the World combined Beethoven's 6th Symphony and Essence by Satya Hinduja

The debut live collaborative performance followed a show on Thursday which was the culmination of three weeks of workshops hosted by conductor David Murphy, Hinduja and musicians from the RPO who had worked with pupils from Bushmead Primary, Downside Primary, Challney High School For Boys and Luton Sixth Form College.

Hinduja said: "We chose the project to be in Luton because it is a community that has great diversity and a lot of social challenges."

Murphy said: "We combined the many voices and languages spoken in Luton into an integrated spatial soundscape - the children themselves were the stars of the piece.

"They really enjoyed the process of recording and the end result demonstrated that all our individual languages and voices spring from the same source - sound itself.

"Our different languages and cultures are all branches of a common humanity."

Hinduja said Saturday's performance went "really, really well and the audience seemed warmed, happy and overjoyed".

"It became a unifying experience and brought people from different walks of life together," she said.

Harmony of the World combined Beethoven's 6th Symphony and Essence by Satya Hinduja

The concert took place at St Mary's Church in Luton

A version of Hinduja's Essence is to be recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London by the composer with the RPO and Synergy Vocals next week.

Satya is based in New York and is the daughter of Ashok Hinduja from the Hinduja family of multi-billionaire brothers.