As the largest concert organiser in the Austrian city of Graz, Musikverein für Steiermark is currently celebrating 200 years of the Musikverein Graz concert hall with a performance of Mahler’s Symphony Number 8 as its finale. The performance saw Rental Pro Austria using a DiGiCo SD8 to mix the concert.

The concert was performed by the Grazer Philharmonic Orchestra plus 300 singers from the Choir of Opera Graz, Studio Choir of University of Music & Performing Arts Graz, and four smaller choirs. ‘The concert at the Grazer Stadthalle was sold out,’ reports Rental Pro Austria’s Mario Held who, along with Andreas Putz, engineered the complex production. ‘We used a DiGiCo SD8 with a Madi Rack and Waves SoundGrid Server One to make sure that this world-class orchestra sounded brilliant in this venue.’

With the two engineers managing around 60 inputs from the Madi Rack, the key requirement was that the sound should never feel like it was reinforced. The SD8 helped them to achieve this. ‘The client wanted balanced classical sound like you would achieve in an standard opera house,’ Held says. ‘The benefit of using DiGiCo consoles is that we can always achieve absolutely great, smooth, non-coloured sound from them and this made the production easy for us, despite its complexity.

‘With the help of our SD8s, our client, the 4,000 strong audience in the Grazer Stadthalle and we, as sound engineers, enjoyed this massive classic event from the first to the last minute.’

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