PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Orchestra welcomed new Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, with great fanfare on Oct. 18 at the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall. Starlite Productions provided the lighting, designed by its own Steve Kosiba. The new conductor’s favorite color, blue, was an important theme in the lighting design. Starlite used Philips Color Kinetic Color Blast 12s, Martin MA 101s, Vari-Lite 3500 Spots and a grandMA full size console for the musical event.
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PHILADELPHIA – For only the eighth time in its 112-year history, the Philadelphia Orchestra welcomed a new Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Canadian-born maestro took to the stage in Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center on Oct. 18 and wielded his baton with great vibrancy as if to paint on a canvas the very reaches of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.
The undulating walls of the immense concert hall were awash in brilliant color as though something magical was happening. And indeed it was.
“Yannick Blue is what we called it,” said Steve Kosiba, one of Starlite Productions’ lighting designers. “During much of the evening we lit the hall with the new conductor‘s favorite color. It was on posters all over Philadelphia for weeks prior to the show—it was a sort of branding, if you will, and gave the audience a sense of his artistic vision.”
All three levels of the walls behind the stage were illuminated by 124 Phillips Color Kinetic Color Blast 12s. The CB12’s high-intensity LEDs cast a constant wash of rich color against the walls and completely changed the dynamics of the room, the Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall.
There were 30 Martin MAC101s employed to provide backlight to a short upstage scrim.
The 6 Phillips Vari*Lite VL3500 Spots made a statement. Starlite Productions’ Sr. Project Manager Jason Danowitz chose the VL3500s for their framing shutters, which allowed the fixtures to exclusively light a giant Yannick sign and not spill any light onto unwanted areas.
Controlling the more than 150 lighting fixtures was MA Lighting’s grandMA Full Size console.
From the earliest years of the 20th Century, the Philadelphia Orchestra has led the way in technology including radio, television and electrical recordings. Yannick’s joining the ranks of musical innovation giants Stokowski and Ormandy is cause for great fanfare and cultural pride for the City of Brotherly Love. Starlite Productions added to the celebration with the latest in lighting technology—a magnificent eye for the spectacular and a deft feel for the texture inspired light creates.
