About This Project

“Beer and Brass” was first envisioned in an Audience Experience Design (AXD) workshop at the New World Symphony, with the goal of designing musical experiences centered around shared affinities. The AXD framework emphasizes helping participants bring their ideas to life by building prototypes and evolving them to meet their audience’s needs. The workshop began with a fundamental question: who is the intended audience, and what value are we creating for them?

A key feature of this process is to shift the focus from the creator to the audience, allowing for greater flexibility and adaptation of the original idea. This audience-centric approach ultimately leads to better, more resonant products.

After its inaugural event, “Beer and Brass” continued to evolve, partly due to changing circumstances in the orchestral world. Its first live rendition took place in a 200-person rehearsal hall at the New World Center and was a tremendous success. However, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated moving the performance online, which sparked further innovation. One such idea was delivering beer directly to audience members’ homes, compensating for the inability to purchase it at the venue.