New Music in New Places will premiere a contemporary classical piece, Cave_music, in September at the Bonnechere Caves in Eganville, ON. (Xenia Pestova)

A free concert in a dark bat cave near Ontario's Algonquin Park will open this year's New Music in New Places series in late September.

The Canadian Music Centre's music series returns with all-new experiences that include a performance inside the Bonnechere Caves.

The series, which aims to bring Canadian composers outside of the concert halls and into the community, features the Sept. 26 première of a contemporary classical piece, Cave_music.

Written by Erik Ross, with performance and improvisation by Xenia Pestova and Katelyn Clark of the Contemporary Keyboard Society, Cave_music will be presented in the Bonnechere Caves in Eganville, Ont.

The caves, southeast of Algonquin Park, are flooded during the winter and become home to hibernating bats. During the summer, the water is pumped out, the bats are gone and the caves remain considerably cool.

Xenia Pestova, a performer and one of the original founders of the Contemporary Keyboard Society, was always fascinated by caves since childhood and immediately thought of presenting a concert in one for the event.

"The Bonnechere Caves seemed absolutely ideal in terms of location, size and what the space had to offer," Pestova told CBC News.

An interactive installation

The cave, which can fit about 30 people, will become the setting for an interactive performance, with audiences walking through the caves and touching objects along the way.

"Rather than being a sit-down concert, we would like to think of the performance more as an interactive installation with the audiences being guided by sonic events happening at different points in space and time," said Pestova.

"This way we can also accommodate more people, and our listeners are free to come and go as they wish," she said.

Pestova and Clark will perform on three Schoenhut toy pianos and use electronics to enhance the experience.

"Because of the surprising lack of reverb in the cave, I have increased the perception of reverb in some of the electronic audio material," said project co-ordinator and composer Erik Ross.

"Some of this is accomplished with effects, but also by moving sounds from one speaker to another…the cave will sound like the music is travelling down the passageways," he said.

Cave_music will premier with two evening performances that will be filmed for webcast. A DVD version of the concert will also be available in the future.

Ross hopes to adapt the performance for other caves across Canada and adapt it for the stage as well.

"We are also hoping that this project continues to expand and grow after this first performance in other locations across Canada," said Ross.

The New Music in New Places series, sponsored by the SOCAN Foundation and the Canada Music Fund, continues with free performances including:

• An evening with Toronto's all-night art extravaganza Nuit Blanche in October that will showcase Canadian composers' works, along with contemporary art.
• LoK8Tr, a multimedia work incorporating internet and social networking tools, which will include video, graphics, poetry and contributions from Twitter, Facebook and Skype, next January.
• Sky Harp: Ice Storm, a nature-themed work by Kristi Allik and Rob Mulder combining video footage of the 1998 ice storm with a dance and musical interpretation of its effects, on Oct. 3.