Opiuo Reflects on His Magnum Opus Red Rocks Performance

In May 2023, Oscar Davey-Wraight was preparing to take the stage at Red Rocks under the moniker Opiuo. The Australia-based producer had sold out the legendary venue, and for good reason: He was about to debut a monumental project that was eight months in the making.

On that unforgettable night, Davey-Wraight reinterpreted his music live with a hand-selected orchestra and top-tier visual effects. Add in the smell from audience members' DMT pens, and the concert truly hit all the senses, making it an immersive experience. Dubbed the Opulent Orchestra, the 22-member group, which included players from the Colorado Symphony, was arranged by Denver-based, Grammy-nominated instrumentalist Tom Hagerman. "He's amazing," Davey-Wraight says. "He understands my thought process and...the melodic content and how to adapt that to instruments."

The set list was meticulously crafted, a melodic stew of Opiuo's sounds that took ample time to perfect. Davey-Wraight would give Hagerman a selection of songs he wanted to use for the program, "and then we'd go in together and pull it apart again," he recalls. "I'd say there were at least six to eight months of properly working on it, for sure."

And now the world can hear the results on the live album Opiuo & the Opulent Orchestra: Live From Red Rocks, as well as watch a concert video that was released via YouTube in November. At the time, Davey-Wraight said that it was some of his "best work yet." And looking back, he feels the same way, even if he's already thinking about his next projects.

But since Opiuo & the Opulent Orchestra was such a long-shouldered concept, it's hard to shrug off. This wasn't Davey-Wraight's first time performing with a live orchestra. Five years earlier at Red Rocks, he'd showcased his music alongside the Syzygy Orchestra; he'd also recorded that performance for a live album and concert video. "It was something I wanted to build on," he explains. "I'd learned a lot in those five years or so, doing the video and lasers and things like that — and trying to make that work together with an orchestra was just an awesome challenge."

A challenge he proved himself capable of, making this latest release visually stunning as well as heavenly sounding. From the creation of the concept to the song selection to the concert visuals, and then later the mixing of the album, he had his hand in every detail. While ordinarily Davey-Wraight will trigger light and video elements in the moment for his live shows, for the orchestra performance, he programmed those accompaniments ahead of time. "With a show like the Orchestra, I'm deeply involved in conducting or just keeping connected with [the musicians] while the show's going on," he explains, "because it is so intense for people like that on stage."
He says he focused on the songs that were the most "emotive" rather than simply going for the most adaptable sound. "I would look knowing that these different stems of the songs would be able to be filled in all of the higher frequencies by these instruments," he explains, "and then leaving some of the power of the electronic sound, because I didn't want to lose any of that huge impact that electronic music can have by fully replacing the sound, but giving it its space.

"It feels like you're enveloped in all of it at once rather than it being like, here's the electronic sound, here's the orchestra. It needs to be tied together," he continues. "So it was really about finding the songs — new and old and unreleased and been out for a decade — that could be expanded on. That was also the whole point of doing the orchestra: to just try and take it to another level."
The months of planning and conceptualizing made walking onto the stage at Red Rocks even more daunting than usual. This wasn't an ordinary Opiuo show, in which Davey-Wraight would usually be the only person on stage, hyping the crowd at the mic, the lights focused on him. Instead, the producer had his back to the audience most of the show while conducting the orchestra.

"As I'm walking out, I just have to have a really big, deep breath and just trust that it's going to be what it's going to be, because I don't have as much control," he explains. "There's so many people that are doing their thing and you can't control that, but you can encourage them by conducting, maintaining eye contact and keeping a good connection.

"That moment of walking on stage is extremely exhilarating and terrifying at the same time, and it's quite different because I'm not facing the audience a lot of the time," he continues. "It's about actually letting the show take over. We purposely had me pretty dark. The orchestra could see me, but I wasn't meant to be the focus point; a lot of the time it was meant to be the show. Because a lot of the time it's about that singular person on stage, but I wanted it to be about the entire experience and even the audience, because we had encouraged them to dress up as well. We wanted everyone to be a part of it."
Davey-Wraight is no stranger to the bonds that live music can build. He remembers a childhood filled with music in the town of Motueka, located on the South Island of New Zealand; his parents owned land where they would host music festivals. "Getting to see and experience gatherings of people and freedom and expression and all those different things from a young age was amazing," he says, adding that he now takes his own children to festivals.

He started deejaying at fourteen, about 25 years ago. "More than anything," he says, "I just wanted to play cool songs for my friends."

Now he does it for sold-out crowds at Red Rocks. He estimates he's played there about seven times, which is a little mind-blowing. "As a venue, it's the best to experience something as well as perform," he says. "People get to display themselves as they want to be in a place. It's almost like a blank canvas, but at the exact same time, the most insanely beautiful and magical place. I guess if we knew what made it so special, someone else could take that and try and make another one.

"For me, it's the challenge," he adds. "It's a moment in your life, let alone your career. That moment that you're standing on stage, there's nothing else quite like it."
Davey-Wraight believes the collaborative orchestral-electronic sound could go far: Although today artificial intelligence can be used to make EDM music, the human element of a live concert can never be re-created. "I don't know what the future holds for it, but the orchestral sound has been around for so long and stayed that true test of time," he says, "and there's so much amazing electronic music and technology coming out that I would hope it just gets more and more melded in the right way."

But, being Opiuo, Davey-Wraight doesn't cling to the same idea for too long. "I'm kind of this person that finds a project, works really hard on it, finishes that and then does something completely different," he says with a laugh. "Now I'm really enjoying making stuff that has no organic elements in it, and that probably will evolve itself into something that I could reinvigorate down the line with an orchestra again. Maybe, if that ever happens again."

Here's hoping it does.
Opiuo & the Opulent Orchestra: Live From Red Rocks is available on all streaming platforms.