Stars of the music world, including musician and songwriter Richard Stilgoe OBE and Julian Colbeck, joined opera singer Dame Felicity Lott DBE for the official opening of the new £3.2m Monkton Senior School Music Centre. Located at the prestigious Monkton Combe School in Bath, the new centre will provide facilities to pupils of all musical abilities under director of music, George Bevan, but will also be available as a rehearsal and performance space for professional musicians.
Over 1000 guests attended the weekend opening event and were treated to a varied programme of music, from a 'Battle of the Bands' competition on the Friday evening, to a clarinet recital, a steel pan band and a 200 strong choir on the Saturday- all showcasing the talents of current and former pupils of the school, including Richard Stilgoe himself.
Harmony Audio Visual took charge of the event production which involved a live stage setup and FOH in the main auditorium and relaying the performances to the overflow audience in the chapel 100m away. The challenge was to consistently relay both the sound and vision without sync issues, time delay or any discernible loss of quality.
By choosing the powerful digital M-300 and S-1608 Digital Snake for the audio relay, both the console and the S-1608 could be connected using Cat 5 - saving time on the set up, providing a discrete cable solution and keeping the costs down. Two cameras were used in the main stage area to capture the visuals and Kramer VGA-Cat 5 converters were chosen to relay the visual element to the chapel, converting from the camera output to Cat 5 then back to VGA to project to the screen.
"The sound quality and ease of use were great and we were able to pick up the menu options (of the M-300) quickly and from a financial point of view, the M-300 made sense. Roland will be Harmony's digital desk of choice for the years to come," commented Chris Irwin, director of Harmony Audio Visual.
(Jim Evans)
