David Atkins Enterprises delivered the Opening Ceremony at the 2011 Arab Games in Doha, Qatar in December, 2011. The production included a number of firsts, including the integration of video projection with an LED audience net. Some 55,000 LEDs were installed in the seating, and the entire stadium seating bowl was used as a surface. I covered the production design in detail in the March 2012 issue of Lighting & Sound America. Here's video footage of the Opening Ceremony.

 Khalifa Stadium during the Opening Ceremony of the 2011 Arab Games. The earth cracks open to reveal the fires of Hell. (photo: RobbieKlaesi)

A monster of evil arrives to seduce the tribes with deadly sins. Note the integration of projection on the field of play with the LED audience net. (Photo: Robbie Klaesi)

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The Montréal Symphony Orchestra's new Maison Symphonique de Montréal is a welcome addition to the Place des Arts complex in the heart of downtown, and Québec's first Public-Private Partnership in the Arts and Culture sector. In Montréal for the inaugural gala in September, I caught up with architect Jack Diamond, acousticians Tateo Nakajima and Bob Essert, and music director Kent Nagano. Read all about it in the February 2012 issue of Lighting & Sound America.

Maison Symphonique de Montréal with acoustical panels lowered, showing Meyer Sound performance sound system loudspeakers deployed

Rear view showing orchestra seating, three balconies and loges

Ceiling acoustical panels in place (photo: Tom Arban)

The Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal rehearsing in its new home (photo: LuceTG)

Inaugural gala of the Maison Symphonique de Montréal, September 7, 2011 (photo: LuceTG)

The 1,900-seat concert hall will serve as the new home of the Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal, which will have exclusive occupancy rights for 240 days each year, well above the 100 days it was formerly granted in Salle Wilfred Pelletier, the 2,990-seat multi-purpose centerpiece of Place des Arts that opened in 1963. This will permit the orchestra the rare luxury of rehearsing in its performance space, something it was unable to do in its old digs. The remaining 125 days each year will be programmed mainly by the Orchestre Métropolitain, Les Violons du Roy (an early-music ensemble) and the McGill Chamber Orchestra.

The Maison Symphonique is unique in being the first public-private partnership (3P) in the construction and management of cultural infrastructure in Québec. 3Ps in other sectors, such as construction and operation of roads and public utilities, have proven to be very efficient: for one thing, the government knows exactly what the project will cost before construction begins. In addition, strict controls are usually in place in 3Ps so that there is no ballooning of costs, as was the case, for example, with Montréal’s Olympic Stadium, a project fully funded from the public purse that took 12 years to build, wasn’t finished until long after the 1976 games for which it was intended, and wasn’t finally paid off until November 2006.

A unique advantage inherent in the structuring of the Maison Symphonique deal stems from the fact that the builder and the operator of the facility are both wholly owned by the same party, SNC-Lavalin, which may resolve any tensions regarding the balance between investment in capital costs versus operating expenses. In most other situations, where the builder and the operator represent different parties, battles can erupt over where the money is spent: the operator usually wants all the facilities and amenities that make operation of the venue efficient, but the builder wants to keep construction costs down in order to maximize profit. A central vacuum system, for example, is more costly up front, but for the operator, it facilitates cost-efficient cleaning of the building.

The fact that the builder and the operator of the Maison Symphonique are under the same umbrella may be key to a much happier outcome here. And the government may well not care whether a particular cost center appears in the capital or the operating column—in the end, it’s all coming out of the same pot.

The Maison Symphonique will be operated and managed until 2038 by SNC-Lavalin ProFac, a wholly owned subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, for $9.1 million per year from the Québec government, at which time the hall will be returned to the government’s control for one dollar. (SNC-Lavalin ProFac also operates all the federal government buildings in Ottawa.)

Of the total $266 million price tag that includes the cost of financing, design, building, operation and maintenance, Québec was required to make a down payment of $75 million, leaving a balance of $191 million to be paid over the next 27 years.

The “private” designation of the 3P partnership ensures that the cost of operation and maintenance will remain undisclosed—it has never been broken out publicly from the $266 million total. Jean Roy, director of Québec’s Ministry of Culture, Communications and the Status of Women’s project management office, estimated the construction project cost to be around $150 million, so by this reckoning, of the $191 million balance outstanding after December 31, 2011, $75 million (39 per cent) represents the balance of the estimated $150 million cost of the construction project, and $116 million (61 per cent) will go toward financing, operation, and maintenance—in 2008 dollars, to be indexed to inflation.

In addition to the $9.1 million it will receive annually from the government of Québec, SNC-Lavalin will also derive revenue from the hall’s operations, including rentals, concessions and bars, and the cloak room. Parking revenues, however, will accrue to Place Des Arts. The five other theatres in the downtown arts complex receive no government subsidies at all, according to Place des Arts’ director of programming, Michel Gagnon.

Adding to his existing responsibility for Salle Wilfred Pelletier, Théâtre Maisonneuve, Théâtre Jean-Duceppe, Cinquième Salle, and Studio-théâtre, Gagnon is now tasked with filling the 100 newly dark nights in Salle Wilfred Pelletier no longer reserved for the OSM. This should present few difficulties, however: he has already booked a touring production of Wicked for 31 performances next August, in addition to the line-up of Mamma Mia, Beauty and the Beast, and Shrek. He has also programmed a 25-performance run of Romeo et Juliet, a French-language musical, something he described as “a rarity.” Noting with no little enthusiasm that touring musicals generally command substantially higher ticket prices than orchestral performances, Gagnon said that he broke even for 2011 early in October, due in part to a very successful run of The Lion King last summer. His responsibilities do not extend to the new hall.

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In Montreal for the 32nd annual Montreal International Jazz Festival—the largest ongoing festival of its kind in the world—photographer Doug Cotton and I caught up with festival sound reinforcement sponsor Meyer Sound, and sat down with co-sponsor Solotech's founder and president Denis Lefrançois for a chat about the company's origins and strategies for growth in a highly competitive industry. Read about it here.

The B-52s perform on the main stage at the 2011 Montreal International Jazz Festival. (Photo: Jean-François Leblanc)

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Our audio and music production departments have teamed up with John Evans Productions to produce two exciting new radio spots for the Muskoka Bay Club, a four-season community with an abundance of recreational and social activities just a 90-minute drive north of Toronto in cottage country. Listen to them on our Spots page.

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Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick project—perhaps the foremost exemplar of the innovative thinking and brilliant design work of Toronto's Engineering Harmonics consultancy—was honored at this year's Infocomm International Conference as the "best healthcare AV project." ProAV and Architect magazines' Spotlight Award for 2011 was presented at InfoComm in Orlando June 11-17.

"This was perhaps the strongest field of entries we've ever had for the Spotlight Awards," said Brad Grimes, editor of ProAV. "It's clear from these winners–and from all the entries–that audiovisual systems continue to play a more prominent role in the way organizations communicate."

In line with the consistent architectural look and feel in all connected teaching rooms, the systems feature two-way interactive HD video conferencing, dynamic microphone queuing, programmable lighting, and live host transfer capability, all enabled via software written by Engineering Harmonics.

Large 11' projection screens in Theatre A at Dalhousie's Halifax campus show lecturer (left), course content (centre) and students in the remote classroom (right).

For more on the project: New hi-def distance education system links 19 sites in 2 provinces. Download a complete project description: Taking Down the Walls of Distance Education.

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Canada’s federal government has approved plans to build a magnificent $42-million glass dome on Parliament Hill as a temporary new home for the House of Commons while the existing chamber on Parliament Hill is being renovated. The soaring glass ceiling is being designed to match the neo-Gothic architecture of the rest of the Parliament Buildings.

Artist's rendering of temporary Commons chamber under a glass dome in West Block courtyard.

The temporary Commons chamber will have exactly the same dimensions and layout as the existing one, complete with tiered seating for MPs and overhanging visitors' galleries.

National Capital Commission architect Linda Dicaire said the spectacular dome is necessary to “provide parliament with a dignified chamber and quality facility worthy of Canada's most democratic institution.”

The dome will be built in what is now an open courtyard in the West Block of the Parliament Buildings, and is expected to be completed in 2018. The building will include a cafeteria and an underground tunnel with its own skylights, connecting the temporary Commons chamber to a whole new visitors' centre.

Toronto consulting firm Engineering Harmonics is designing the infrastructure for the extensive audio and broadcast systems.

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Medical education in Canada got a shot in the arm, as an extraordinarily innovative high definition video conferencing system went online in September, 2010, linking 19 sites at two university campuses and, soon, four New Brunswick hospitals, in Dalhousie University’s new Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick program, established in collaboration with the Government of New Brunswick, the University of New Brunswick and the Horizon Health Network.

“A key principle is that all students must have a comparable learning experience,” said John Robertson, Dalhousie’s director of academic computing services and Med IT in charge of the project. “So whether a student is sitting in Saint John or Halifax, that student must have the same access to the educational content, the same quality of information, and the same ability to interact with the lecturer or classmates in other locations. The challenge is to achieve that objective of comparability,” he said.

Three 11-foot projection screens (left) and reverse angle showing presenter's set of three 42-inch confidence monitors in Lecture Theatre A at Dalhousie's Halifax campus

The program’s mandate is to deliver lectures and educational content from any one of the school’s 19 medical facilities to one or more of the other facilities, offering students an experience comparable to a face-to-face lecture, including high quality visuals and audio, and enabling participants at various sites to engage in interactive discussions.

“In sheer complexity and performance, I’m not aware of anything quite like this in video conferencing distance education in all of Canada,” said Philip Giddings, president of Engineering Harmonics Inc. who designed the Dalhousie video conferencing system and earlier distance learning systems at the University of Toronto, St. Michael’s Hospital, Queens University, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Waterloo, and other institutions.

The firm specializes in simplifying the labyrinthine difficulties of video conferencing across multiple sites, a task made even more complex by the impending switchover from analog to digital broadcasting next year. Unlike conventional analog systems, digital video distribution incorporates HDCP copy protection that restricts the number of displays and other destinations that video can be sent to—and that can shut down an entire video conferencing system if not properly managed.

On top of the standard prescription for a good video conferencing system—proper acoustics, lighting, sightlines, and a lightning fast, reliable network connecting facilities across hundreds of kilometers—Engineering Harmonics wrote a massive amount of custom software to manage the entire process behind the scenes, while offering users a simple, intuitive control interface on touch screens.

“We have some very traditional teachers in our program who literally could not imagine how they were going to be able to teach without a blackboard and chalk. If we hadn’t had Engineering Harmonics on board, we never would have been able to get our teachers to understand how they can teach better with this technology,” said Joanne Power, policy and planning officer in the office of Dalhousie’s dean of the faculty of medicine.

“We learned a great deal from the other schools that have already gone down this path,” said Robertson. “We’d like to think that the bar has been raised with this installation.”

An innovative feature never before implemented in video conferencing systems is host switching. Control of the entire video conference can be transferred in real time to another site in the network, including control of the currently active microphone queue, cameras, lighting, sources and content.

Lecture theatres at the Halifax and Saint John campuses mirror each other with three screens at the front of the room displaying in high definition the lecturer, educational content, and students at the remote location. The images are crisp and very easy to see—high contrast DNP Supernova front-projection screens in the large theatre each measure over 11’ wide.

“The projection screens are so clear they look more like plasma displays,” said Engineering Harmonics’ project manager Andrew Kozak, who has helmed nine of the firm’s previous distance learning and medical education projects, and whose experience was heavily leveraged at Dalhousie. He noted that the new screens are twice as bright and offer close to seven times the contrast of standard front-projection screens. The smaller classrooms are equipped with 85” flat panel plasma displays.

Lecturers have their own duplicate set of 42” confidence monitors mounted immediately in front of the lectern in each room so they never have to turn around to view what students are seeing. A camera focused on the lecturer from the back of the room shoots over the top of the student-screen in the centre of the lecturer’s set of three confidence monitors, so that when the lecturer looks at a remote student’s image on screen, the eye-line is such that it appears the lecturer is making eye contact. Eliminating parallax in this way is a very necessary requirement in achieving the objective of comparability for participants in remote locations.

Microphones on student desks can be activated either automatically or manually to allow for questions or class discussions. Cameras mounted at the front of the room are tied into the microphone switching system so that when a student speaks, that student’s image is automatically displayed on the student-screen at the remote location, while a second camera moves to focus on the next student in the microphone cue. An automatic microphone matrix system eliminates feedback by reducing the level of microphone signals in nearby loudspeakers, regardless of the number of active microphones or their locations in a room.

A pair of 30-seat video conference rooms at the Halifax campus equipped with two screens each are set up to facilitate clinical education with similarly equipped rooms at the Saint John Regional Hospital, and ultimately Moncton Hospital, Miramichi Hospital, and Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton. In each room, one screen displays the content under discussion, and the other shows the participants in the remote location. A number of smaller video conference rooms are similarly laid out at the Dalhousie and University of New Brunswick Saint John campuses.

Room lighting was designed to be easily switched for use in video conferencing, presentation, and low light theatre situations, and room layouts were designed to incorporate optimum sightlines so that all participants have a clear view of everything displayed at the front of the room. In the largest lecture theatre, additional flat panel displays mounted below the main projection screens permit easy viewing by those in the first few rows of seats.

The system was designed for ease of use by professors, students, technicians, administrators and lay people, groups with widely disparate interests and aptitudes. That meant putting extensive effort into designing all rooms to have a common look and feel, as well as automating room lighting, projection and microphone switching, and camera operations, so that all the technical aspects recede into the background, allowing the essential business of medical education to remain the primary focus.

“The fact that the consultants wrote the software programming is probably the most important—and exciting—contributor to the success of the project. For example, microphone queuing across multiple sites and associated camera control would probably not have been implemented if an integrator had provided the programming, because the client’s unique set of requirements wouldn’t have been as fully elucidated as it was in the continuous exchange of ideas that is unique to the consulting relationship,” Kozak said.

“Because we had a great client with a great vision, the end result clearly shows what can happen when you couple that with an experienced, knowledgeable team. Together we have produced an amazing system that is going to pay off in providing tremendous health care benefits to the larger community through expanded medical education in Maritime Canada,” he added

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The largest Optocore single ring network ever installed is currently in use in the Cirque du Soleil's Viva ELVIS production at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

The system was chosen by Cirque's sound designer Jonathan Deans after witnessing an Optocore demonstration in New York by Optocore president Marc Brunke. Following discussions in which Deans laid out the unique requirement for Viva ELVIS, Optocore accelerated development of the system to provide for multiple clients in a server-based topology.

"We're the first to use client-servers," says the show's assistant head of audio Aaron Beck. "Up until now, Optocore was run from a single computer. We wanted multiple clients to be able to control any part of the network—we have two clients in the monitor room, one at the front of house, one in the equipment room, and another in the RF area," he explains.

With 21 network devices on the ring out of a possible 24, the system has ample room for expansion. The 21 devices handle 504 audio inputs and 776 outputs, converted to 48 kHz AES digital audio.

A guitar sub-system incorporates three on-stage guitarists, a vault of vintage guitars, a basement full of amplifiers, and a forest of foot pedals that must be switched on the fly while the guitarists are busy with their choreography or riding up the 50' set. MIDI triggers and a chain of 18 different Optocore network devices, Optocore A/D converters, mics and direct inputs (DIs) all interconnected with no buzz or hum, get the job done.

Integration of Optocore fibre optic networks into live performance systems is assured by a very low overall latency of 41.6µs between any points in the synchronous network, regardless of complexity, allowing for use in stage and in-ear monitor applications.

Optocore's ability to create 24 keystroke macros per client is heavily used in Viva ELVIS. One macro was written to switch playback outputs from one Optocore DD2FE MADI I/O module to a second DD2FE, effectively becoming the redundant-switcher. The macro can also be triggered via MIDI, if desired.

"We're using macros a lot in our backup scenarios. We route stem mixes from the FOH console to a Yamaha 02R next to our LCS monitor console. If the LCS were to crash, we can reroute the in-ear monitor signals to come from the 02R with a press of a macro. All band members would continue to get in-ear monitoring while we re-booted the monitor console," Beck says. The YS2 and YG2 expansion cards, made by Optocore for Yamaha digital consoles, allow for simple fibre connection of 32 I/O into a Yamaha 02R.

The crew has found the macros to be so useful that they have programmed more than 100 of them for use at various points during and between shows. Beck says he can easily reroute thousands of patch points in software into or out of any of the show's five main and backup consoles without moving a single wire.

"I wouldn't want to do a show without Optocore now. Regarding cost, I'd say we've saved maybe 50 per cent, based mostly on the cost of labour in terminations per copper connection. In the RF room, for example, we handle the inputs from the mics and the outputs to the in-ear monitors-40 Sennheiser 3732 receivers feed the wireless mic signals via AES digital audio directly into a single rack space Optocore DD32E.

"So what would have totaled in excess of 100 copper lines is reduced to four pieces of fibre. The job of terminating more than 100 copper lines would have taken a couple of guys several days to complete, but with four fibre terminations, one technician can do it in less than an hour," he said.

"On top of that, Optocore is flawless in performance. During the entire production process, I never had to troubleshoot a single ground problem," Beck recalls. "From day one, the system has been completely silent. The first time the monitor mixer turned his speakers up, it was so quiet he didn't even think they were on!"

Associated Buzz Creative provides technical marketing support services for Optocore GmbH and Optocore North America. Read our full article in the October 2010 issue of Lighting & Sound America.

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The fabulous new Michael and Sonja Koerner Hall at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music features a number of unique technological innovations achieved by consultants Engineering Harmonics of Toronto. Chief among them is an ingenious and visually elegant voice-lift system that integrates with the performance sound system in a way that is truly unique to provide complete coverage to every seat in reinforced applications, where such coverage might otherwise be much more costly or more complex to achieve.

Built over three years at a cost of some $110 million, the 1,135-seat concert hall is the jewel of the new TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning at the Royal Conservatory of Music. The hall achieved the highest possible acoustic rating—N1—rendering it ideal for the finest acoustical performances of classical music, jazz, and world music. The incorporation of variable acoustics makes it equally well suited to amplified music, lectures, and film presentations. The hall features two balcony tiers above the main orchestra level, and a third technical balcony, finished to provide optimal sightlines for live televised broadcasts of performances.

Centre cluster (left), rear view of voice-stick behind centre cluster (middle), and close-up of voice-stick showing house mix position (right)

For reinforced performances, the voice-lift system can be integrated with the flown performance sound system in an ingenious way to provide complete coverage of the orchestra level and the seating in the chorus levels above the sides and rear of the stage.

Yet another design innovation was provision of a permanent mix position at the rear of the parterre level on the centreline, just steps from the door to the sound control room. Touring professionals who may be unfamiliar with the venue will appreciate this, since it gives them a comfortable place to mix in the same acoustic space as the performers.

Read the full article by Associated Buzz Creative's Alan Hardiman in the April 2010 issue of Lighting & Sound America. More information can be found in our coverage in the March-April 2010 issue of Broadcaster.

Photo credits: Tom Arban (left and middle), Bill Coons (right)

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Toronto AV consultants Engineering Harmonics designed and specified a hidden voice-lift system and retractable music system in the brand new Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas. Designed by Foster + Partners under Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster, the 2,200-seat hall was engineered specifically for performances of opera and musical theatre. Its stages were designed and equipped with appropriate flooring for performances of ballet and other forms of dance.

A 21st century reinterpretation of the traditional “horseshoe” opera house, the hall features seating that spans five levels: orchestra, box circle, mezzanine, dress circle, and grand tier. While professional opera singers have no trouble being heard in every seat, some amplification—referred to as voice lift—is occasionally required for child singers, announcements from the stage, and voice support for off-stage chorus.

Five seating levels seen from the stage (photo: Iwan Baan) Right: Engineering Harmonics' senior designer Martin Van Dijk

Moreover, the incorporation of variable acoustics by Bob Essert of Sound Space Design was required to support performances of popular music, touring Broadway shows and other events requiring the use of a performance sound system.

Engineering Harmonics has gained a well deserved reputation for designing performance sound systems that integrate amplified shows into the prized natural acoustics of concert and opera halls, which are usually tailored to the performance of acoustic music, and—not coincidentally—funded largely through the philanthropy of patrons of symphony, opera and ballet. A substantial portion of a performing arts centre’s revenue, however, typically comes from other types of performance, such as musical theatre, which is sometimes amplified to levels that can swamp the acoustics so carefully crafted into a hall, unless the performance sound system is properly designed.

The mere presence of voice lift or performance sound systems in an opera house, however, has long been anathema to the opera community. The general director of the Seattle Opera and former host of TV’s Live from the Met, Speight Jenkins, once told The New York Times, “If we give in to amplification or enhancement or whatever the catch phrase is, the very personality of the voices will change. If you go beyond this, which is to me a question of morality, you get close to a place where you are taking away one of the most important characteristics of our art form.”

Such terms as “give in,” “catch phrase,” and “morality” in reference to the use of amplification reveal the intense personal feelings that surround the issue. Regardless of the reasons for the antipathy toward electronics in the opera community, it is preferable that there be no visible evidence of the existence of sound systems in the Winspear Opera House. For this reason a hidden voice-lift system and retractable music system were specified by Engineering Harmonics.

A total of 10 Renkus Heinz digitally steerable Iconyx arrays were installed in the walls running up vertically on either side of the proscenium and aimed at precise angles to cover each of the five seating levels. Iconyx units lend themselves readily to inconspicuous installation, each IC8 array being just over 6” wide and about 3’ high. Four IC8s ranging up the proscenium wall on each side of the stage cover respectively the orchestra, box circle, mezzanine and dress circle. An IC16—comprised of two IC8s arranged one above the other some 6’ high—on each side provides coverage of the grand tier’s expanded upper balcony seating.

Additional delay and surround loudspeakers were hidden in the under- and over-balcony balcony areas where sound energy from the stage may be inadequate to satisfy all patrons. Eight Renkus-Heinz PN82/9s were installed for over-balcony coverage, and, according to Engineering Harmonics' project manager Paul Alegado, these are never switched off. Imagine that—in an opera house, where sound reinforcement is a dirty word, we have a hidden voice-lift system, as well as over-balcony speakers that are always on! This is a testament to how amazingly clean the system is, so well designed that even super critical opera buffs will never become aware of its existence.

The Rhaon system not only transports digital audio; it also permits programming of precise aiming of the Iconyx systems using Beamware software, so that voice-lift intended for each of the five seating levels is delivered exactly where required within tightly controlled angles. The efficiency realized from such precise aiming allows for the maintenance of lower than normal volume levels, which helps the voice-lift system go unnoticed.

When different manufacturers’ digital audio systems are combined into larger systems, even with their individual implementations of the same digital audio network—in this case CobraNet—issues relating to latency times and negotiation between the different components invariably arise. 

"It was a challenge to maintain low latency among all devices in the digital audio network, and to ensure that all digital-to-analog conversion times are consistent," Alegado said. "For example, when the audio signal arrives at one loudspeaker box in a 12-box array, it is essential that the signal latency is identical to the other 11, otherwise the array will behave unpredictably, and not as designed. We had to work very hard with the three manufacturers of the major system components—Yamaha, Biamp and Renkus-Heinz—in order to achieve this."

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