Airport travelers don’t typically get an orchestral welcome, but a new art installation at Pittsburgh International Airport has found a way. Ahead of next month’s NFL Draft, Joe Zeff Design, a Pittsburgh-based creative agency, on Tuesday debuted life-size holograms of performing Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra musicians.
Three hologram musicians, who appear to be playing live inside a seven-foot-tall device, will perform around the clock to welcome airport travelers, including NFL Draft visitors, from now through April 30. The holograms are displayed alongside a Dave DiCello Photography mural in PIT’s Airside Center Core, visible to both arriving and departing travelers.
“We’ve been told that there will be 800,000 people passing through here during the month of April, and they will all have the opportunity to be serenaded,” Joe Zeff, president of Joe Zeff Design, told TribLive.
Travelers can also scan an on-screen QR code to purchase tickets to see the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall.
Zeff, along with PSO assistant concertmaster Dylan Naroff and PSO President and CEO Melia P. Tourangeau, said on Tuesday that while the region gears up for three days of NFL Draft action, they hope to highlight the complete “story of Pittsburgh,” including its deep-rooted arts and cultural institutions.
“What better expression of what Pittsburgh is about than a violinist from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra demonstrating that Pittsburgh is more than a football town?” Zeff said. “Pittsburgh is a town that has so many other things to offer, and hopefully, through holograms, all of these people coming and experiencing our city for the first time can have a new appreciation.”
To help launch his holographic counterpart on Tuesday, Dylan Naroff played an original violin arrangement of Styx’s “Renegade,” an unofficial anthem of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The San Jose, Calif., native wasn’t familiar with the song before, “But to hear it, and then to see people react to it in the stadium, that got me motivated,” Naroff said.
Naroff will record a studio version of his arrangement that will appear in the installation.
Being made into a hologram is “a little dystopian but exciting,” he joked. “I feel like I’m in an episode of ‘Black Mirror,’ but it’s very cool, and a great way to welcome people into Pittsburgh.”
The installation seems especially novel for late-night airport travelers.
“Think about how dispiriting it is to walk through any airport at 2 in the morning,” said Joe Zeff. “To have a classical musician welcoming you to Pittsburgh, it’s just a whole new way to greet people.”