The first night of the BBC Proms saw L-Acoustics take over South Kensington for an event never attempted before
Over 160 boxes of L-Acoustics K2, KIVA-II and KARA loudspeakers, coupled with KS28, SB28 and SB18 subs were used last Friday, to make the first night of the BBC Proms a truly one-of-a-kind event.
The night marked the world premiere of the composition Five Telegrams, a unique collaboration based around the first world war. The piece was created by the widely acclaimed contemporary composer Anna Meredith, and the Tony Award-winning design company 59 Productions, whose work includes the London 2012 Opening Ceremony and the National Theatre success War Horse.
Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Meredith explained how the composition consisted of five separate movements, “each representing a communication structure that we’ve abstracted as a creative starting point”.
The first movement was inspired by newspaper articles from 1918, the second by field service postcards which Meredith describes as “feel both inconsequential and heart-breaking”.
The third movement was called Redaction and was based on the censorship of these soldiers postcards.
The fourth was about codes, while the last aimed to communicate the moment of armistice.
The latter built to heavy cumulative moment, but – acknowledging the tragedies that took place on that day – it was “definitely not triumphant”.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra performed inside the Royal Albert Hall with use of the L-ISA sound system, and our brilliant team amplified this outside the hall to an audience of over 5000 people with K2 and KARA speakers in neighbouring Hyde park.
We also provided playback and click track systems to ensure the music was in sync with 59 Productions visuals projected on the Royal Albert Hall’s walls, to pinpoint accuracy. Alongside this came simultaneous projection mapping inside and outside the hall, with Delta’s own Griff Hewis mixing the front-of-house sound for the audience in the park with freelance engineer Collin Park.
The piece lit up South Kensington both visually and audibly, and we were very pleased to be a part of something so unique. Bring on the rest of the Proms!
