The Music Center at Strathmore is a modern glass-and-steel multidisciplinary arts space in North Bethesda, MD. Well-appointed with excellent acoustics, it is like many other performance venues in American suburbs. But last month, this fairly typical space became, in the words of one critic, “a heavenly place to be.”
That happened when Sarah Brightman walked onto its stage as part of her A Christmas Symphony tour. The renowned classical/crossover soprano brought her transformative magic to Strathmore and 16 other venues across the U.S. during the tour, enchanting audiences with her angelically beautiful three-octave range vocals, as she wove an array of music from Puccini to John Lennon into her two hour show.
Supporting the celebrated artists as her voice soared to the heavens was an elegantly glittering lighting and show design by Nathan Taylor. The time-coded light show was programmed by Plymouth, UK-based LD Jason Hyne using the suite at NEG Earth, and run during the U.S. tour by Austin, TX-based LD Ruby Leigh of Allume Live Productions.
Traveling with the team on the tour was the ChamSys MagicQ 250M Stadium, an ideal choice for many reasons according to Hyne. One of the most obvious, he says, given the relentless one-month touring schedule, is the console’s compact foldable design.
“Portability was critically important in light of the travel schedule,” said Hyne. “I visited ChamSys in the UK for a demo of the 250M in late July 21. Right away, I knew that this is the desk for me. I have used the ChamSys 250M desk over the autumn in the UK with the Kaiser Chiefs festival shows and Roger Taylor’s The Outsider tour, and it has been a revelation to me the power this compact desk can give whilst programming and operating shows.”
Hyne is quick to point out, however, that portability could not come at the expense of performance on the Brightman tour. In this respect, he was pleased that the console comes with the complete ChamSys Stadium Suite, as invaluable asset in helping Leigh run the time-coded show at the tour’s wide range of venues.
For her part, Leigh described how the MagicQ MQ250 with its large, intuitive user interface, along with features like motorized faders and easily navigated cue stack tracks helped her on the tour. “Mostly we performed at 2,500 or more capacity theaters with various stage sizes,” she said. “The rig itself was fairly adaptable, so it worked well in the bigger, as well as the tighter, spaces. I had to update the various positions during the tour. ChamSys made it really easy for us to adjust the position pallets to fit each venue’s space.”
She continued, “Making sure the timecode really syncs up is crucial in any time-coded show–and this tour is certainly no different. Each intensity and color fade needs to be precise or else the effect of the mood can be ruined for the audience, so the precise control that the console gave me was very important.”
With all of the lighting elements coming together smoothly, the design team was able to reflect the deeply moving power of Brightman’s performance. “All of the scenes that we set for the different songs are dynamic in their own way,” said Leigh. “Some are far more dramatic while others are extremely subtle and ethereal. Our goal as a team was to contribute to the audience being in awe of Sarah and the impact of her voice without being distracted by a snap in a cue.”
Seemingly small adjustments like changing a two second intensity fade with a single fixture in a single cue inside of a playback page made a big difference during the holiday tour, noted Leigh.
It’s doubtful that any of the fans who turned out for Sarah Brightman’s tour were familiar with the steps involved in accomplishing that feat, but when the great artist concluded her last show on Dec. 21 in New Orleans, it was this kind of attention to detail had helped them enjoy a memorable holiday experience.
