"Spectacular to behold... This creative interplay of sight and sound was instrumental in drawing an entirely new audience to the hall."

Photochoreography is:
• Highly acclaimed
• Time-tested
• Ideal for community
involvement and partnering
• Multi-sensory
• Orchestra-friendly
• Unique
• Audience building, accessible
and present-day relevant
• Versatile
• Self-contained and easy
to produce
• An excellent value

1) Highly acclaimed. Click reviews to read what many music critics, conductors, orchestra managers and fellow concert artists say about Westwater photochoreography.

2) Time-tested. During his 30 year career, James Westwater has performed with over 150 orchestras in North America and abroad. As someone who is highly attune to the needs of symphonies, Westwater is frequently updating his repertoire to add present-day relevance, artistic dimensions and respond to the changing cultural and entertainment landscape.

3) Ideal for community involvement and partnering (see info at right).
We offer two programs, Kids, Cameras and Classics™ and Community, Cameras and Classics™, that encourage creative, hands-on community involvement and new partnering opportunities with other community organizations and sponsors.

4) Multi-sensory art form. During a performance, James Westwater cues the projection of hundreds of photographs onto an immense panoramic screen suspended above the orchestra. While the musicians perform, images emerge, blend, dissolve, sweep, cut and fade in meaningful ways... conveying the artist's vision, inspired by great music.

5) Orchestra-friendly. Photochoreography is performed to a classical repertoire. Unlike many programs designed to reach today's audiences, where orchestras play non-classical music in order to attract a broader audience, Westwater sets his photochoreography to great works of classical music.

6) Unique. James Westwater was the first, and remains the world's only professional, full-time symphonic photochoreographer. His photochoreography can only be experienced in live performance.

7) Audience-building, accessible and present-day relevant. Both the themes and multi-sensory format of Westwater's work have wide audience appeal. His many pieces are about people, beauty, nature, regions, special places, heritage, cultures, significant approaches to life and more. Present-day subjects add contemporary relevance and speak to the interests of all types of today's audiences; young and old, first-time and longstanding concertgoers alike.

8) Versatile. James Westwater offers a growing assortment of photochoreography pieces which have been programmed for a wide variety of concerts. Orchestras integrate photochoreography into traditional concerts (classics, light classics, pops, family, educational, outdoor and chamber music) as well as innovative musical events designed to attract new audiences. For example, one orchestra engaged Westwater for 2 subscription, 3 pops, 1 family and 6 educational concerts, all within a single period of time.

9) Self-contained and easy to produce. We provide virtually all performance equipment. The artist oversees its setup and personally directs the performance of his photographic essays. The orchestra provides the music and the conductor. In booking and producing engagements, you work directly with James Westwater.

10) Excellent value. Westwater's fees, which include projection equipment, are at times less than the cost of renting the equipment alone, and are significantly less than most alternatives utilizing contemporary media. Westwater photochoreography is an excellent way to add new dimensions and new audiences to your concert seasons, year after year.

Westwater has performed with the
principal orchestras of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Washington DC, Minneapolis, Dallas, Saint Louis, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cincinnati, Saint Paul, Indianapolis, Houston, Portland, Denver, Columbus, Rochester, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, Vancouver BC and over 150 more >

For repertoire, booking and
more information:

Enthusiasm for this innovative partnership spread to numerous other organizations both in the greater Springfield area and beyond. The concert program included Thomson's The Plow that Broke the Plains, Heitzeg's Symphony to the Prairie Farm, music from Cowell's Old American Country Set and four pieces of Westwater photochoreography.

Westwater and the Orchestra performed Westwater's A Love for the Land, set to Copland's Appalachian Spring, and three newly created pieces of photochoreography which utilized photography made by local farm family members, 4-H kids and FFA students, and photographers from the area. Click here or on the photo below to see samples of images made for the project.

The reviewing music critic offered perceptive insight: "Orchestras across the country are working hard to reach all segments of their constituencies, but few seem as successful as the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, at least last weekend. When maestro Peter Stafford Wilson asked all past and present members of 4-H and FFA to stand, more than half the capacity audience in [the] Auditorium rose to its feet. ...

The community's response was strongly positive. Listeners flocked to the Clark State Community College Performing Arts Center, home of the orchestra, necessitating an added performance yesterday afternoon. ... Westwater, the orchestra and its music director brought off the premiere without a hitch to the full enjoyment of an enthralled audience."

The orchestra was enthusiastic about this project because it directly involved the community in a creative hands-on way, it added community relevance to the concert experience, it enabled the orchestra to reach audiences they had not successfully reached before, it strengthened the perception of the orchestra as a valued and vital member of the community, and it opened doors to further innovative community partnerships.

The concerts, titled "Growing Together," were an outgrowth, in part, of Westwater's innovative Community, Cameras & Classics™ and Kids, Cameras & Classics™ programs. Ohio State University Extension spearheaded the project which was made possible with a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Click here to see the concert's special poster.