The principal venue of Moscow’s International Performing Arts Center, the 1,735-seat Svetlanov Hall has recently installed a Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system, along with a Mica line array sound reinforcement system.
The hall’s 1.7s natural reverberation time is well suited to orchestral performance and its 5,500-pipe organ – it is the home of conductor Vladimir Spivakov and the National Philharmonic of Russia – and the addition of the Constellation system provides approriate acoustics for pop and jazz performances.
‘Constellation makes Svetlanov Hall one of the best in Russia for all kinds of classical music,’ says Pavel Kravchun, associate professor of acoustics at Moscow Lomonosov State University, curator of organs for the Performing Arts Center, and an accomplished organist. ‘When I played the organ in the improved acoustics for the first time, I enjoyed the long, cathedral-like reverberations. Constellation makes the organ sound richer, and better balanced. Now Svetlanov Hall is not one hall but a number of concert halls with optimum acoustics for every kind of music.’
The Svetlanov Hall Constellation system uses 137 active loudspeakers placed overhead and around the perimeter of the venue. A unique feature in this particular system is the ‘active acoustical canopy’. This comprises 16 Meyer Sound Stella-8C installation loudspeakers suspended inside colour-matched cylindrical enclosures, and supplies critical early reflections for the stage and front seating areas. The system also incorporates Meyer Sound UP-4XP 48 V loudspeakers and MM-4XP self-powered loudspeakers, as well as ten UMS-SM subwoofers, which are used to enhance the sound of its organ.
At the heart of the Constellation system (which is operated from the DiGiCo console at FOH) are four D-Mitri DVRAS digital processors, which host the VRAS algorithms. The complete D-Mitri system comprises 14 frames, and 48 miniature microphones are strategically placed around the hall to pick up the room’s physical response.
The reinforcement system is based around main arrays of ten-each MICA loudspeakers flown under dual 600-HP subwoofers. Designed by consultant Dave Dennison, the system also includes dual ground-stacked 700-HP subwoofers, six rear array UPQ-1P loudspeakers, seven front-fill M1D line array loudspeakers, and a Galileo loudspeaker management system with one Galileo 616 processor. Both the Constellation and reinforcement systems were supplied and installed by DSS (Digital Sound Systems) of Moscow under the direction of Vladimir Marchenko.
The Moscow International Performing Arts Center was designed under the direction of principal architects Vladilen Krasilnikov and Yuri Gnedovsky, and is is named to honour conductor Evgeny Svetlanov.
More: www.meyersound.com
