Volume 20 Issue 1 - September 2014

Ready, Set...Houselights DownSARA CONSTANTOpening night of a concert season is something of a landmark moment, and one likely to havepresenters and concertgoers alike on the edge of their seats. The first show of the year acts asa beginning of sorts, setting the tone for the season ahead. And yet, a season opener is also inmany ways a culmination of the great work of preparation – the not-always-visible efforts ofthe myriad people who shape a musical project into its final, public form.We spoke with some of those behind-the-scenes music professionals whose work is just that – toensure that each concert of the season, for both audience and performers, happens just the way it should.Opening night, when the houselights go down and the curtain rises, is in fact a very different sort oflandmark for each individual involved – and for some, just another day on the job.What follows are conversations with a cluster of industry experts: the acoustician working on the TheIsabel, the hall in the new Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen’s University; the principalToronto Symphony Orchestra librarian backstage at Roy Thomson Hall; and two individuals whosesets and surtitles respectively, help give opera in Toronto its visual presence. As each prepares in his ownway for the onset of another season, they divulge the secrets of the job and reveal just how crucial thatbehind-the-scenes clockwork can be.So, as you enjoy your musical firsts of the upcoming concert season, be sure to keep an eye (or an ear)out for the handiwork of some of these industry experts. While you may not see them onstage underthe spotlights, you’ll know just what, at that moment, they might be up to.MEREDITH DAULTMatt Mahon, of Arup, runningacoustic tests at the Isabel.JOE SOLWAY, Arup Acoustician. As an acousticianfor engineering and design firm Arup,Joe Solway has taken on the role of acousticconsultant for the new addition to Queen’sUniversity in Kingston – the 566-seat performancehall at the Isabel Bader Centre for Performing Arts.When is the building’s big reveal?The big gala opening [an invitation-only event]is on September 20, and Queen’s has a studentopening on September 13.What is the process from your end to get readyfor that opening?A lot of it is now done. We’ve been coming upto the site throughout the whole constructionprocess, to check on all the different elements, andduring the process we’ve been testing the roomacoustically. We just had three days this week oftesting the acoustics and the audio-visual design.What do those types of tests involve?For the room acoustics test that we do in theperformance hall, we have a whole measurementkit. The main sound is a frequency sweep that weplay through a loudspeaker and then we capturethat using a special microphone called an ambisonic.It catches not only the level of sound but alsothe direction of where it’s coming from. It’s notonly the level or the frequency balance, but alsothe spacial components of the sound that is a keypart of the design, and a key part of what makes aroom special. We also have a starting pistol that weshoot as well, and a static white noise that we playthrough the loudspeaker, to measure variations inlevel across the room.How does it all start?The process really starts in design. We build a3D acoustic computer model of the space, wherewe input all the acoustical properties of the wallsand the seats and the ceiling and can simulate inthe model how it’s going to sound. We have a spacethat we built in our office called the SoundLab;it’s a listening room where we can simulatethe acoustics ofspaces that we’redesigning. A keypart of the processfor The Isabel was tomodel the space wewere designing tosimulate the acoustics,and then withQueen’s and thearchitects to listento that design aswe were designingit. The testing wasfrom the designbut then continuedinto the constructionprocess.How was yourplanning for thespace influenced bythe types of eventsit will host?Joe Solway (left) withcolleague Matt Mahon (right)in the lobby of the Isabel.The shape and the form of the room camedirectly out of the programming meetings withQueen’s. From the outset of the project, we satdown with Queen’s faculty and defined a matrixof usage times. We said the hall would be primarilyfor chamber groups but still had to accommodatethe symphony orchestra of the university, andeverything from jazz to Brazilian samba to amplifiedsound use for film. From that, we sketchedout what the basic shape and form needed tobe for those functions. The architects took thosebuilding blocks, if you will, and based their designon those parameters. I think the reason why we’reso happy with the design is that Snøhetta areamazing at taking those design parameters andthen fully integrating them into their architecturalvision. Really, the acoustical properties aretotally embedded in the architectural design. That12 | September 1, 2014 – October 7, 2014 thewholenote.com