What if an entire park resonated with the sound of music? This was the idea behind a new sound installation in Nova Gorica's Rafut Park, the entirety of which has become a tree orchestra of sorts.

Developed by the Dresden Symphony Orchestra as part of the 2025 European Capital of Culture, the sound installation Tree Orchestra / Symphonic Forest is placed in Rafut Park, a historic park dating back to late Romantic exoticism.

Visitors roaming the park find QR codes on special plates among the trees, and scanning them with a special app called Symfo produces a piece played by an instrument or a group of instruments of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra.

Once all the codes have been scanned, the visitors have the entire musical collection on their phones, a veritable symphony.

Two very different musical styles are available, a romantic soundscape with Robert Schumann's Forest Scenes, adapted by Andreas Boyd, and contemporary works by Slovenian composer Matej Bonin. His piece Symphonic Forest/Simfonični Gozd was inspired by the exotic plants of Rafut Park.

"I was very impressed by a walk in the park. During my relatively short visit, I deeply felt the grandeur of the trees, experienced the wind, the sunset and even a brief thunderstorm. The impressions were so strong that I went home with a clear vision of what I wanted to explore sonically," Bonin said.

The sound installation will be available until January 2026, but may be extended if there is sufficient interest from visitors.

Rafut Park, perched on a hill overlooking Nova Gorica and surrounding a villa that is one of only two surviving examples of neo-Islamic architecture in Slovenia, had long been neglected but was restored to its old glory last year.

It is home to around 140 plant species from around the globe, including a giant redwood and the oldest cork oak in the country. It is designed as a garden with organically winding paths.