Genelec treats Snarky Puppy fans with global immersive listening sessions

9.12.2025

A very warm thanks to all who joined worldwide for our special pre-release listening sessions of SOMNI, the new album by Snarky Puppy and Metropole Orkest conducted by Jules Buckley. The events in China and Berlin, Germany, were held in our own Genelec Experience Centres, while the others were hosted by our esteemed partners – Sama Sound in South Korea, Audio Pro in Heilbronn, Germany, Omni Sound Lab in Chile, and Konepaja cinema in Helsinki, Finland.

Attendees experienced GRAMMY-winning Producer Nic Hard’s immersive mixes on our high-end multichannel SAM™ systems in acoustically treated rooms. Uniquely, the album was recorded live over three consecutive nights in January of this year in Utrecht, Netherlands – with audience members seated among the musicians, to capture the energy and spontaneity of the performance. In all, 74 musicians played and 256 microphones were used.

Snarky Puppy web image

Genelec’s Marcel Schechter, who spearheaded the organisation of our listening events, attended the recording sessions in Utrecht himself, and he was deeply impressed by the incredible range and emotional depth of Snarky Puppy’s new material.

“The moment the concert had ended, I just was asking myself one question – how could we make this remarkable experience, originally presented on site through an exceptional headphone mix, accessible to fans who couldn’t be in Utrecht? We were already familiar with the Atmos mixes from Empire Central, and confident that SOMNI would be released in the same format, making it a perfect fit for our global Experience Centres. We reached out to the group’s management and presented the idea, and we were thrilled with how this collaboration came together. We look forward to bringing you more special listening events next year.”

SOMNI – Catalan for dream – is the second full-collaboration between the jazz fusion, funk and world music collective Snarky Puppy and world-leading pop and jazz orchestra Metropole Orkest, following their 2015 project Sylva. Conceptually, the new album turns inward, exploring the essence of dreams: shifting identities, surreal logic, phantom intimacies, and the emotional residue that lingers on after waking. In contrast to Sylva’s outward, cinematic portrayal of the natural world, SOMNI delves into the intangible realm of the subconscious.

Here are a few photos from the events,

Snarky Puppy Preview in China
Beijing Genelec Experience Centre.