APG At The Royal Opera House

Marta Sebestyen is the leading light of Hungarian folk music and an internationally renowned performer. Best known as the haunting voice on the Oscar-winning soundtrack of The English Patient, Marta Sebestyen’s latest album, I can see the Gates of Heaven, is described as arguably her most personal work to date.

Fans were recently treated to a unique and intimate concert at the Paul Hamlyn Hall in the Royal Opera House in London where Marta was joined by album collaborators Balázs Szokolay Dongó and Mátyás Bolya for a special performance of songs personally chosen by the artists.
 
“The brief was very straightforward,” recalled Nicholson. “It was for a traditional three-piece Hungarian folk band using flutes, zither, bagpipes, saxophone, lute, tambourine, and of course vocals. However, the Hamlyn Hall has always presented difficult and challenging acoustic problems due to the very high reverberation characteristics of the room. Essentially it’s a huge conservatory, and all the surfaces are either glass or mirrors. On top of all that, there is a glass-fronted balcony running all the way round the room. The reflections inevitably lead to a confused sound image so, to combat these conditions, we needed a very special FOH system.”
 
Nicholson turned to French loudspeaker manufacturers APG for a solution, and after careful consideration, selected the full range 'single-box' 3000C Beam system. With an upward dispersion of just 5º and 20º downwards with 60º in the horizontal plane, Nicholson utilised two cabinets on each side of the stage. The directivity pattern of the 'pre-orientated' mid/high horn naturally concentrates the acoustic energy towards the front listening zone without having to incline the loudspeaker itself. Therefore the reverberated energy coming from ceilings is reduced, which increases the intelligibility in difficult acoustical environments.

“The results were truly excellent,” confirmed Nicholson. “There was no need to gap the cabinets as they are seamless when used in multiples, and given the type of show we didn’t require subs either as the 3000Cs are full range. The overall bloom of the room was dramatically reduced which enabled me to achieve a high degree of mix separation and clarity.” Nicholson also used the new APG DX12 and DX15 stage monitors and a pair of APG MX1 lip fills and the entire system was managed using APG proprietary controllers.
 
“This is the first time that APG systems were used exclusively at a UK show” noted Nicholson. “From my point of view, it couldn’t have gone better, we made a notoriously difficult room sound better than it had ever done before, and what’s more it was at the Royal Opera House, and you don’t get a much more prestigious address than that!”

www.apg.tm.fr