Page 39 - FINAL_Aurora Orchestra_Inside Beethoven Coverage Book

without sheet music, musicians also be widely spaced among the audience around the enormous
room.

For John Harte, CEO at Aurora Orchestra, choosing Printworks creates opportunities. He said:
‘Printworks allows us to perform to an audience of up to 1000 people and lets them experience the
symphony from amongst the players. This way the musicians are able to connect with the audience
on a new, more intimate level.’

An exciting proposition for some, a daunting prospect for others. Leaving the optimal acoustic
space behind is often cause for concern, specifically amongst classical music enthusiasts who expect
a certain quality of sound. Will the listening experience be as accurate and emotionally direct as it
would be when staged in a traditional concert hall?

Global Soundscape specialist Southby Productions provides the solution: a revolutionary,
immersive sound technology called d&b Soundscape, created by leading audio technology and
solutions provider d&b audiotechnik. The technology creates a transparent, enveloping listening
experience that connects the ears to the eyes.

The d&b Soundscape is making waves all around the world. It has been adopted by renowned artists
such as Björk, been a trusted solution at the prestigious Ravenna Festival in Italy since 2016 and has
lifted well-known performances such as The Nutcracker at the Royal Albert Hall to new heights.

By combining d&b loudspeaker systems with state-of-the-art processing power, object-based
mixing and sophisticated room emulation, d&b Soundscape is a toolkit which enables the creation
of an unparalleled listening experience for the audience – natural, harmonious, enveloping, and
emotionally engaging.

Soundscape was the key to success for this event as it can be applied as a virtual acoustic shell.
Utilising a software called En-Space, which recreates acoustic signatures of prestigious classical
music venues from around the world and applies these to any stage, indoors or outdoors, without the
need for any cumbersome structures or acoustic chambers, Printworks has been acoustically
transformed.

The Soundscape En-Space software lets users choose acoustic signatures from some of the most
renowned concert halls in the world such as the Mozart Hall in Vienna, the Alghieri Theatre in
Ravenna or the Bing Concert Hall in Stanford. These can then be applied to any environment,
indoors or outdoors and so concert hall can be conjured up anywhere, enabling classical concerts to
be staged in a much wider variety of spaces.

Adam Hockley, technical support at d&b, explained: ‘By recording measurements of the acoustic
response of these famous music venues we were able to build a database of reverberation qualities
that we can replicate in any given space. By applying the virtual acoustic shell, the musicians
benefit from the same sound qualities these spaces would normally generate. This way they are able
to get the most out of their performance which in return gives the audience the best possible
experience.’

By applying a separate set of speakers and microphones to the stage or performance space,
reflections can be reproduced that generate the same sound quality that concert halls are built to
achieve and the tonal qualities of each instrument and vocals are supported without distortion.

Southby Productions have been using Soundscape for a number of years and have seen first-hand
the transformative power it has on any event. Southby Director Christopher Jones explained why the
technology is crucial in making the Aurora Orchestra concert work: ‘Printworks is a former printing