Upgraded Wallcast Experience Opens New World Symphony Season

The New World Symphony launches its 2025–26 season this weekend on Saturday, Oct. 4 and Sunday, Oct 5. On Saturday night, the live concert will be broadast on an upgraded WALLCAST® in Soundscape Park. (Photo by Rui-Dias Aidos, courtesy of New World Symphony.)

On many Miami Beach nights, Soundscape Park becomes more than just a park. Under the stars, hundreds gather on blankets and folding chairs, some with picnic baskets and bottles of wine, others as passersby who stop, captivated by the 7,000-square-foot screen lighting up the New World Center. What they see and hear is not an ordinary show: it’s a live New World Symphony concert, projected in real time from inside Frank Gehry’s hall. Since 2011, Wallcast® concerts have reshaped Miami’s cultural landscape, turning classical music into a civic ritual that’s free, collective, and unmistakably local.

“What makes Wallcast® concerts so unique is the sense of community,” said Clyde Scott, vice president and creative director of NWS Media. “We get families, we get groups of friends, people of all ages and all different walks of life. What we’re doing is taking the production from inside the concert hall, turning it into this highly produced video and audio experience that really isn’t matched anywhere in the world, and presenting it to as many as 1,500 or 2,000 people in the park for free. It’s a pretty unique experience that you can’t find anywhere else in Miami.”

New World Symphony Artistic Director Stéphane Denève, now in his third season, leads the orchestra’s boundary-pushing programming. (Photo by Alex Markow, courtesy of New World Symphony)

The season-opening program, on Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5, is led by Artistic Director Stéphane Denève. It pairs Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait”—with actor Joshua Malina as narrator—with James Lee III’s “Chuphshah! Harriet’s Drive to Canaan” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, the “Eroica,” a trio of works that speak to endurance and freedom.

At the same time, Wallcast® enters a new chapter with an upgrade of its audio and camera systems.

“When we opened the building in 2011, we had a custom Meyer Constellation sound system. It was beautiful, but this is the first time we’ve been able to upgrade it. The new speakers are incredible, and the cameras inside the hall have also been replaced with the latest technology. The picture quality is phenomenal,” said Scott. “The experience will be even more immersive than before.”

Technology, however, is only part of the story. “Our biggest challenge is always maintaining the integrity of the piece—deciding what shots and what rhythm of shots will help us tell the story of the music so that someone sitting in the park goes away not just having enjoyed the performance, but with a deeper understanding of the music.”

From the start, Gehry’s design of the New World Center emphasized transparency: glass façades that let people peek into rehearsals and see musicians at work. The Wallcast® extends that idea outward, turning the building inside out. “It’s exactly the opposite of what people often feel when they think about classical music,” explained Scott. “The Wallcast® concerts are a great extension of that—total openness and access.”

Actor Joshua Malina brings Abraham Lincoln’s words to life in “Copland’s Lincoln Portrait” with the New World Symphony. (Photo by Manfred Baumann, courtesy of New World Symphony)

Against that backdrop of openness comes the voice of Abraham Lincoln, performed by Joshua Malina. Known for his television roles in “The West Wing,” “Scandal,” and “The Big Bang Theory,” Malina will narrate “Lincoln Portrait,” a work that interlaces orchestral writing with Lincoln’s speeches and letters.

“As an actor, you’re always looking for good writing, and it’s hard to beat the writing of Abraham Lincoln,” said Malina. “There’s a particularly wonderful quote from the Lincoln-Douglas debates where he calls the fight over slavery ‘the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world.’ That one really hit me. While the issues roiling America today may be more nuanced than slavery, there are still stark contrasts—forces of democracy and authoritarianism that can pretty fairly be described as right and wrong. That quotation speaks to me and to the relevance of Lincoln’s words.”

Copland composed the piece in 1942, in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

“Part of his motivation was to bring unity to the nation at a time when we desperately needed it, when we needed to mend our differences and fight a common foe,” Malina explained. “He did that by honoring a president known as the Great Uniter. And nowadays, as polarizing as the political times are in the United States, ‘Lincoln Portrait’ offers a little bit of hope that maybe we can come together again.”

For Malina, narration is new territory. “I’ve prepared by listening to the piece over and over, reading the material, really processing the narration and the intent of the words,” he explains.

New World Symphony Wallcast concert. Inside, Fellows perform; outside, Soundscape Park becomes a public square where Miami gathers around music. (Photo by WorldRedEye, courtesy of New World Symphony)

“But a lot of the challenge will come when I arrive in Miami. This is outside my normal field of work, which is one of the exciting things about it. I’ve tried to become more of a person who, when presented with a challenge, says ‘yes.’ So I’m excited to learn as rehearsals unfold.”

Recently back on stage after decades of screen work, he’s eager for the immediacy of the concert hall. “It’s much more exciting and electric to be performing a piece and getting a connection to an audience as it happens. That’s what I’m looking forward to—feeling the energy in the room.”

That energy won’t be confined to four walls when the performance broadcasts live to Soundscape Park on Saturday, Oct. 4. “I’m excited to do something I’ve never done before and be part of a new technology bringing art to more people,” said Malina.

(WATCH: ArtSpeak’s interview with Clyde Scott about upgrades”)

Behind that energy is the next generation: Eighty-seven Fellows, young musicians selected for their talent and promise, who spend three years at NWS refining their craft and learning to connect with audiences in new ways.

Since its founding in 1987 by Michael Tilson Thomas, the fellowship has launched more than 1,300 alumni into leadership roles across orchestras worldwide. The Wallcast® is both a tool and a symbol of that mission: innovation in service of access.

Stéphane Denève conducts the New World Symphony in the Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall. The orchestra is powered by 87 Fellows, musicians in a three year training program begun by Michael Tilson Thomas. (Photo by Alex Markow, courtesy of New World Symphony)

The season begins with heroes—Tubman, Lincoln, Beethoven—but its intent is forward-looking. Inside the hall, Fellows interpret landmarks of the repertoire. Outside, the city gathers as a community, turning Soundscape Park into an agora.

“What happens at the Wallcast® is more than a concert,” said Scott. “It’s a reminder that music can be a common space, a public square where we meet to celebrate what unites us.”

WHAT: New World Symphony’s “Denève: Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ ”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, also, Wallcast® ; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5.

 WHERE: New World Center, 500 17th St., Miami Beach

 COST: $40, $75. $85, $95, $100, $115, $130,  $160.

 INFORMATION: (305) 673-3331 and nws.edu

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