One of the world’s greatest music festivals, the BBC Proms season is a celebration of classical music in all its diverse forms.  Taking place from the 18th of July to the 13th of September, the Proms Season attracts the most prestigious orchestras and artists from all over the globe to the iconic stage of the Royal Albert Hall.  From classical to contemporary, traditional to innovative, the Proms are dedicated to promoting an astounding spectrum of music which caters for all tastes and audiences.

Sound By Design has been the lead audio supplier to the Proms for 15 consecutive years, in which time the company’s engineers have worked with a number of technically challenging and diverse proms.  These include the 2012 Cage Centenary Celebration (involving cactuses), Bernstein’s Mass, Stockhausen’s Welt Parliament, duelling jazz bands and the occasional Daleks.  With over ten years experience however, Sound By Design’s Senior engineer Griff Hewis is a seasoned professional at delivering complex audio arrangements and technically ambitious projects.

The 2014 season on the other hand, has been one of the most technically challenging and rigorous festivals to date, particularly when it came to Prom 41 and delivering what has been labelled the most enigmatic, remarkable, ambitious and downright audacious Prom ever to have been staged.

Performed by the Aurora Orchestra, Prom 41 included three separate pieces. Beginning with an exceptional performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, the ensemble was performed entirely from memory without music, stands, seats or scores, illustrating the sheer dexterity and commitment of the musicians.  Conducted by Aurora’s artistic director and chief conductor Nicholas Collon, the piece certainly set the scene for the evening as one that would challenge and eventually shatter the rules and conventions surrounding classical music performance.

The second piece of the evening saw a recital of Tabakova’s Spinning a Yarn, performed by soloists Alexandra Wood on the violin and Stevie Wishart on the hurdy-gurdy.  This piece was aided by naturalistic amplification from the hall’s main EM Acoustics HALO-C PA system in its standard concert stereo line array configuration.

The third and final piece of the night saw the eagerly awaited premiere of composer Benedict Mason’s latest commission, Meld.  Despite the secrecy surrounding this brand new work, there had been plenty of excitement and talk leading up to its eventual performance.  Featuring 141 musicians from the expanded Aurora Orchestra, Meld was a Prom unlike any other.  Like a number of Benedict Mason’s works, Meld is site-specific, composed solely for this venue and based entirely on the geometry and physical structure of the Royal Albert Hall’s auditorium.  Spread out in clusters around the oval theatre, Meld is a physical piece as much as an aural with musicians constantly migrating to different sections of the hall, creating live 360 degree surround sound.

Lasting 45 minutes, Meld takes the audience on a journey through the diverse possibilities of sound and how it interacts with its environment.  The 141 piece orchestra conceived of a choir, percussion section (including the clanging of steel pipes) and considerable string, wind and brass sections, with each musician listening to a bespoke and highly intricate click-track.  The musicians would also perform dances in the centre of the arena (free from Prommers for this concert) whilst also making sounds with their bodies such as clicking, stamping and sliding across the floor.  One of the most impressive elements involved the circle of sound movement, where musicians stood in the stalls forming a complete ring around the auditorium.  Following the customised click track, each would play a sharp, pizzicato note with pinpoint timing, thus creating a rippling sound effect, orbiting the hall.

The technical requirements of Prom 41 were complex and challenging for Sound By Design.  The composer’s brief was for all players and singers to wear wireless in-ear monitors for the specially commissioned work.  48 different click tracks had to be broadcast on 48 transmitters to 141 players. The radio coverage needed to include not just the auditorium but also the backstage corridors, gallery, basement and stairwells to cater for the musicians’ movements.  All of the technology was designed to remain unseen and hidden from the audience.

Preparations for this project began back in January.  Frequencies had to be planned and booked with Ofcom well in advance of the rehearsals and show.  A frequency plan was drawn up by Operations Manager Phill Chapman with the assistance of Shure’s Wireless Workbench Software.  In the crowded RF Spectrum of central London, we had to be careful not to collide with other radio users, in particular, large areas of broadcasting digital TV.  Ultimately, a combination of Sennheiser 2000 and 300 series and Shure PSM1000 units were utilised to make up the full complement of 48 transmitters. Initial coverage testing allowed us to optimise the antenna positions to a point by the organ in the gallery.  This allowed us to hit the areas in the hall requested by the composer.  With mindful use of signal distribution, low-loss coax and directional antennae we were able to keep all the transmitters at 10mW, avoiding excessive intermodulation and still achieve the desired coverage.  We exclusively used Shure SE215 earphones for all the performers.  The advantage of the in-ear design and removable drivers (the performers only wore one ear-piece allowing us to remove the unused earpiece) minimised acoustic spill into the venue, something the composer was very keen to eliminate.

Playback of the click-track (devised and arranged by Felix Dreher from Frankfurt) was performed by two Macbook Pros running Apple’s Logic Pro Software. These were fed into the DiGiCo SD8 on MADI via an RME Madiface on one machine and a Soundtracs DiGiGrid on the backup machine.  The DiGiCo was able to switch seamlessly between the two machines in case of a failure thus ensuring continuity of the performance.

Speaking about Prom 41, Griff mentions,

“We were pleased to report there were no technical issues on the night and the performance received critical appraise. We even got to take a bow on stage!”

Congratulations to Griff and the team of engineers Elaine Duffy, Graham Colley and Amanda Sonnar who ensured the smooth and efficient running of this challenging and unique concert. Sound By Design are thrilled to have been a part of such a groundbreaking and exciting world premiere.

Photos by Mark Allen, BBC