Sharing the Sounds of The Simón Bolívar Youth
Orchestra
Abstract (summary)
When the
Glenn Gould Foundation announced in 2008 that it was awarding its eighth Glenn
Gould Prize to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, the Venezuelan founder of El Sistema and
the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, Dr. Abreu said he couldn't come to Toronto
to accept the award without the youth orchestra. So the foundation, which
normally hosts a celebratory concert for the award, decided to showcase the
effects of music education by staging the concert in a massive arena. King
investigates the challenges audio engineers faced in preparing for the gala
event.
Full text
Created
by the Glenn Gould Foundation, the Glenn Gould Prize is an international
lifetime achievement award in music and communications, presented in the memory
of its namesake, the well-known Canadian pianist. It is awarded every three years
to a living individual in recognition of his or her contributions to music and
communication.
In 2008,
the Eighth Glenn Gould Prize was awarded to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, the
promoter, builder, and founder of the National System of Youth and Children's
Orchestras of Venezuela, or El Sistema. The program is an initiative for social
change that helps at-risk youth by immersing them into music education. He
founded the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in 1975, comprised of the finest
musicians coming out of the program, and became its permanent conductor. Since,
he has devoted his life to musical young people in his native land. Now, over
20 countries have adopted the Venezuelan model of musical education that he
pioneered.
This
year's Celebration Of Music Week, presented by the Foundation in honour of its
latest Glenn Gould Prize laureate, culminated with a youth concert at the
Rogers Centre in Toronto, where an audience of 14,000 school children from
across the province took in a breathtaking performance by the Simón Bolívar
Youth Orchestra.
THE
LAUREATE
Dr.
Abreu's National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras is now an
internationally-recognized initiative that's made enormous progress for social
change in Venezuela and other countries that have since adopted the model. Over
1,000,000 students have passed through the system since its inception, with
several large orchestras being created from the top students. The Simón Bolívar
Youth Orchestra is the biggest and most reputable of the bunch, currently
touring the globe and inspiring others with the power of music education.
The Glenn
Gould Prize is $50,000, and after first being informed that he'd be the 2008
recipient, Dr. Abreu immediately dedicated the funds to new musical instruments
for the program. Furthering this unselfish emphasis on the children involved in
the El Sistema, Dr. Abreu said he couldn't come to Toronto to accept the prize
without die Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra in- tow - after all, he
said,"It's really their prize."This is where things got a bit tricky
for the Glenn Gould Foundation and its humble resources.
"We're
not a huge foundation, but we're nimble," says Glen Morley, the
Foundation's President. The Foundation normally hosts a concert in celebration
of its recently-named laureate, so this year, it was decided that the Simón
Bolívar Youth Orchestra would give the celebratory concert. Then, being that
the 250 individuals that tour with the orchestra would already be in town,
plans were made to take advantage of their presence to help share the power of
music education with local schools, members of government, and the public
alike. This is where the idea to host a concert for students in a giant arena -
and the snags that come with making an orchestra sound good in such a space -
was born.
COMING
TOGETHER
"We
had the opportunity to find the very best people that could help pull this all
together," says Morley about getting plans underway, "We took the
story of what the prize is about to people early enough to get them involved.
We were extremely fortunate with that, and I can't praise those people highly
enough."
One of those
individuals was Fred Bunting of Creative Reality Group, who would become
Production Manager for the entire Celebration of Music Week and its
performances. Bunting has been a production manager for around 25 years,
spending a few of them under that title with the Toronto Symphony. Since, he's
primarily focused on corporate events and trade shows, though his experience
working with an orchestra makes him a valuable commodity for one-off events
like this one.
Bunting
was first approached to manage the traditional laureate concert at the Four
Seasons Centre on Monday, October 26, 2009, where the Simón Bolívar orchestra
performed with Gustavo Dudamel - arguably the hottest young conductor on the
planet and a graduate of El Sistema.
"Over
the last nine months, as interest in the project grew, it evolved into 14
in-school concerts, a show at Koerner Hall (as part of Dr. Abreu's oneday
symposium on music education), and then the Rogers Centre performance,"
explains Bunting, "Because the Foundation is such a big proponent of music
education, we wanted to put the orchestra in front of school kids."
The
initial challenge was finding a venue for the student performance, and while it
was first supposed to be hosted at the ACC, the Rogers Centre offered more prep
time due to a cancelled event. "The challenges for the week were based
around gettingthe orchestra there.getting all of their instruments and
equipment there, and finding a stage big enough for them." On top ofthat
is the much different acoustic environment that comes with a venue like the
Rogers Centre as opposed to, say, the aforementioned Four Seasons Centre or
Koerner Hall.
THE SOUND
OE THE SYMPHONY
In a
great room, making a great orchestra sound good isn't much of a challenge.
Making that same orchestra sound good in a giant sports arena, though, requires
someone with a great deal of experience and expertise.
Originally
trained in classical music recording by Decca Records in London, John Pellowe
is a Grammywinning recording engineer who's also worked at FOH with some of the
best known classical and opera performers of this age, including Luciano
Pavarotti and The Three Tenors. Pavarotti's preference for Meyer Sound fostered
an association between Pellowe and the company, who's since hired him on as a Consultant
Engineer.
Throughout
his illustrious career, Pellowe has also worked extensively with Dr. Abreu and
El Sistema. When planning for the Rogers Centre concert got underway, the
orchestra made it clear that it wanted Pellowe at FOH mixing the show; however,
Pellowe would only join the fold if he had gear with which he was comfortable
and familiar.
Meyer
Sound, which has been an ongoing supporter of El Sistema for some time, agreed
to help the Glenn Gould Foundation with the event by stepping in as a major
sponsor. Along with bringing in Pellowe, concessions from production sound
supplier Solotech in Montreal, which has plenty of experience reinforcing
symphonic performances with Meyer Sound equipment, all came together to make
Pellowe comfortable.
"This
isn't the easiest place to work for a few reasons," explains Pellowe.'Tt's
a nightmare to rig, considering the shape of the roof Also, like lot of
previous visitors to the centre, Pellowe found the roof to present a number of
optical illusions, making it difficult to figure out the lengths of steel
needed to properly Hy different components. "Gear often swings in a
different direction than you may have originally anticipated."
Having
mixed some Three Tenors performances there years earlier, Pellowe was also
ready for the lousy reverberation time of the venue."It sits at around 4.5
seconds, or at least that's what I counted," he says. "Because
ofthat, it's difficult to produce quality sound in there."
Helping
him do so, however, are around 60 array boxes - 14 MILOs on both sides of the
stage and 16 MICAs on each side for out fills. There are also several subs,
some flown and some ground stacked, helping to push the low end. Additionally,
four overhead UPA1 Ps offered monitoring to the orchestra itself. Shares
Bunting about the arrangement: "Orchestras are a bit tricky because an
orchestra has to hear itself, but you can't have that many monitors. We had to
go to side fills to emulate what an acoustic shell would do for the orchestra
in terms of projecting sound onstage so the orchestra on one side can hear what
the other side is doing."
As for
what the audience is hearing, Pellowe's responsibility is not just to deliver
each individual instrument clearly, but to relay the intended balance of those
instruments together. "John works his magic out front by taking that
acoustic balance from the stage and getting it to the house through an
electronic system," says Bunting. "It's a big challenge in terms of
having the right miking for those kinds of instruments. Harps don't stand out
the way electric guitars do."
As far as
miking the 180-odd performers onstage, Pellowe took as active a role in that
process as he did the mixing from FOH. "The set-up on stage in a scenario
like this is crucial to whether or not a concert will work," he says
bluntly. "The choice of mies, their distance from the musicians, and
density of mies onstage are all critical to making this work. My focus is
onstage before anything else."
When it
came to miking, all of the mies used onstage came from Solotech, which has
plenty of experience miking orchestras and similar acts. The mix was
predominantly made up of offerings from Neumann and Schoeps, and while Pellowe
is most familiar with the latter, he was quite pleased with all of the equipment.
"VVe had a lot of Neumann KM 184s, and that's a mie I know quite well from
the studio," he says. "We also used quite a few TLM l03s,and it was
the first time I'd ever used those. I've used similar Neumanns, so I had a
feeling they'd sound nice, but I really, really came to love their sound."
The
backbone of the show was the array of 184s - a small-diaphragm pencil mie.
"I used them on the instruments without a lot of bottom-end,"shares
Pellowe. "I used the 103s on aü of the instruments with a lot of low-frequency
content." Being it was the first time he'd ever worked with such a
combination, Pellowe admits he was a little hesitant as to how things would
work, but was quite pleased with the end results.
Also a
new venture for Pellowe was the DiGiCo SD7 at FOH. "I'd used the D5 many times, though this was
my first time with the SD7,"
he shares. "I've wanted to get my hands on one for ages, and it was
great." He says that, despite the SD7 being the more sophisticated desk of the two, the
interfaces are quite similar and made for a straightforward experience.
"It's a wonderful environment - like driving a Ferrari," he says.
"I'm very enthusiastic about it."
The
entire audio system for the production went in the Tuesday of the Celebration
Of Music Week, with the public rehearsal on Wednesday and the final show taking
place on Thursday, October 29, 2009. As far as tuning the PA, Pellowe let the
capable system techs from Solotech do their jobs.
David
Brazeau was the Senior Project Manager in charge of the Rogers Centre
performance, with Marc Depratto acting as PA and Patch Tech, and David Vincent
as PA and SIM tech. Working to Pellowe's guidelines as to how he likes the
system tuned, Brazeau and his team took care of the fine positioning and
design, as well as system EQ and optimization in SIM. "If we've all done
our jobs properly, these things will all come together and make a cohesive,
good-sounding environment," says Pellowe. "After all, that's the
objective in the first place."
After
Wednesday's rehearsal, there were very few additional adjustments for the
system. "I'm used to doing shows with a very short sound check, so it's
like you have to get everything right before the orchestra even comes onstage
for the first time," says Pellowe. Come Thursday, everything was in-place
for a great concert that would properly relay what this orchestra can do, and
that's exactíy what the 14,000 in attendance experienced.
ATRULY
INSPIRATIONAL EVENT
The
entire event was filmed with the aid of Jack Lenz of Lenz Entertainment and
Tri-Lite TV, with Doug McClement and LiveWire doing the onsite audio recording
for future broadcast. This was yet another challenge for the crew, as due to a
licensing issue, the go-ahead for the TV crew wasn't given until a few days
prior to the evenL Thankfully, though, because of these last-minute efforts
from morethan-capable professionals, others will now be able to experience this
event.
"Being
able to reproduce sound in a venue that large starts by honouring the original
source," says Morley after the dust has settled. "With the
combination of the right gear and the right guy, we got an accurate
representation of what this world-renowned symphony orchestra sounds like, except
in a big venue where we could share it with more people."
Having
worked with this talented group in the past, Pellowe knew exactly what was
coming. "It's probably one of the most forward-thinking and successful
social programs for children that's ever taken place anywhere in the
world," says Pellowe about El Sistema."I find it a very humbling
experience to work with them. The value that the Simón Bolivar orchestra brings
to an event towers over top of all of the technical considerations." That
said, Pellowe and his company from Solotech certainly did the talented
youngsters justice.
"I'm
sure everyone - students and adults alike - was blown away by the quality of
the music they heard," says Pellowe in hindsight. "By using good
equipment, we're able to deliver that music with a level of clarity and detail
that maximizes everyone's enjoyment of the event."
Indexing (details)
Location
Narrow
subject
Broad
subject
People
Company
Title
Sharing
the Sounds of The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra
Author
Publication
title
Volume
Issue
Pages
30-33
Publication
year
2009
Publication
date
Dec 2009
Year
2009
Publisher
Norris-Whitney
Communications Inc
Place of
publication
St.
Catharines, Ont.
Country
of publication
Canada
Journal
subject
ISSN
1186-1797
Source
type
Magazines
Language
of publication
English
Document
type
Feature
Document
feature
Photographs
ProQuest
document ID
756573725
Document
URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/756573725?accountid=144516
Last
updated
2012-09-17
Database
International
Index to Music Periodicals Full Text
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