With a history spanning more than 125 years, the University of Greenwich is regarded as one of the world’s top universities, and offers more than 200 courses across its Greenwich, Avery Hill and Medway campuses in the UK.
Recently, the university forged partnerships with Sennheiser and video collaboration solutions provider AVer to bridge the gap between in-person and remote education.
Run entirely by volunteers and broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, UK Community Radio station Mix 92.6 is now quipped with the largest Vicbooth Ultra modular sound insulation pod in the UK following assistance provided by HHB Communications on moving to its new premises.
Taking the lead on this project for 92.6 was Dave Neal, a long-time volunteer who is currently working in the engineering team for the station.
With the studio they were using less than ideal, comparing notes between sessions in a cramped kitchen prompted Amin Hamzianpour and Nicholas Sonuga to come up with the concept of Qube – a purpose-built space available to rent to musicians, and also podcasters, YouTubers, artists and photographers.
A London location where members would work and socialise in the same building seemed a good place to start...
The Festival d’Avignon has recently completed a long-term project of major stage and technical infrastructure upgrades for its main presentation area, the Courtyard of Honor at the Palace of the Popes.
The work includes new 2,000-seat bleachers, a new stage, and new audio, video, and lighting – only the sixth renovation project since the festival was founded several decades ago. The project includes Amadeus and Holophonix spatialisation.
Following the coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey the start-studded Coronation Concert took place at Windsor Castle, with Terry Tew Sound & Light appointed as the official audio supplier. Among the key kit selections were DiGiCo Quantum 7 consoles and Shure’s Axient Digital wireless mic system.
Alongside the 20,000 attending the concert, it was simultaneously broadcast to millions of viewers in more than 100 countries.
With its legacy audio system fragmented and failing, and no comprehensive understanding of its installation, the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort in Florida was increasingly unable to cope.
The resort is expansive, with 12 restaurants, two championship golf courses, fitness centre, spa and multiple meeting/conference facilities. With music and audio quality of critical importance to the guest experience, it was time to call for help.
The centenary of the BBC’s first radio transmission saw sound artist Nick Ryan invited to submit a proposal for an installation drawing on the the exchange of ideas, education and art appreciation offered by a well-travelled common space.
‘I was the only artist that suggested sound,’ he recalls. ‘My idea was to use sound in a controlled way. I wanted the soundscape to change every second or every minute, and use a long speaker array to animate the space through sound.’
Status Quo spent much of 2022 playing a series of UK theatre shows, followed by festivals, arenas and theatres across Europe. With the band every step of the way were Yamaha PM5D-RH and M7CL mixing consoles.
‘The band wants three things,’ says FOH engineer Andy May. ‘Reliability, great sound and, just as important, consistency. They need to know that the sound out front and in their monitors will be the same every night.’
Amadeus has collaborated with South African artist, performer and director William Kentridge on an immersive sound environment for his latest multi-sensory installation, More Sweetly Play the Dance, at France’s Les Champs Libres centre.
The exhibition evokes the concept of celebration in its broadest sense, as ‘a place to rejoice, resist, make a claim for social, identity and cultural rights, and catharsis – a place where spectacular and intimate meet’.
Set on the Delaware River midway between New York and Philadelphia, ArtYard in Frenchtown, New Jersey, was founded six years ago with a remit to be ‘an incubator for creative expression and a catalyst for collaborations that reveal the transformational power of art’.
In fitting out its recently completed 162-seat McDonnell Theater, ArtYard chose an Alcons Audio pro-ribbon systems for sound.
Almost prescient in its timing, the 5G Festival project sprang into life in 2019, just as the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic was shaping up to impact the world and decimate the live entertainment industry.
Together with growing calls to action over environmental concerns, an exploratory venture into the world of remote entertainment technology couldn’t have been a more welcome endeavour.
