Meet Our Conductor

[chris319]

The conductor of the youth symphony I am involved with, Musique Sur La Mer Youth Symphony Orchestra, recently made a commercial for Bayer aspirin based on the orchestra's concert tour to Australia and New Zealand last year. Watch:

marcy

She is one of the very nicest people you could ever hope to meet and cares so very, very much about the young people in her orchestra.

This year I am once again recording their benefit concert (and it WILL be in stereo!). Yesterday I spoke with Marcy about the upcoming concert and learned of two new things this year: a piano, which will be located off stage in the "orchestra pit", and a four-camera TV crew. Surprise! I was informed that the TV crew had recorded them in a previous year, apparently using on-board camera mics, and the audio just sucked. Well, I couldn't let this go by. "I can give them a feed off my board!" says I. So now it has turned into a live mix for the TV crew, just like in the old days of live broadcasting. It's going to be fun!

[Corran]

Be prepared for them to complain about your mic stands being in the way.

Is the piano really going to be in the "pit?" At least in all the places I've worked, the "pit" is the front third of the stage or so which gets lowered down to 20 feet below stage level; surely that's not what they are doing?

[chris319]

Originally Posted by Corran

Be prepared for them to complain about your mic stands being in the way.

Oh yeah, I see those headlights coming. I am prepared to move the mics down out of their shots, but of course there is a limit to it.

Is the piano really going to be in the "pit?" At least in all the places I've worked, the "pit" is the front third of the stage or so which gets lowered down to 20 feet below stage level; surely that's not what they are doing?

As of last year there was a very wide interval between the lip of the stage and the front row of the audience. The auditorium underwent a renovation in the past year but unless that has changed, what I call the orchestra pit is the area between the stage lip and the front row. It sits about 3 1/2 feet below stage level. From the front row back the floor is raked upward. There simply isn't enough room for the piano on stage, I'm told.