SYDNEY – Last year, 101 musicians from 33 countries uploaded videos to YouTube of themselves auditioning for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 and were chosen to perform YouTube Symphony Orchestra artistic advisor, Michael Tilson Thomas. The performance was streamed live on YouTube directly from Sydney Opera House. The Grand Finale concert was the culmination of the week long festival, and visuals accompanying the music included projections on the interior Concert Hall and the exterior sails of the Sydney Opera House.
Richard Neville of Mandylights served as LD for the event. He opted for Vari-Lite fixtures including 51 VL5 Wash, 14 VL1000TS Spot, 26 VL3000 Spot and 230 Mandylights LED Tubes. Neville's brief was described as the equivalent of the MTV Awards for classical music.
"It needed to be spectacular, but not a rock show," he noted. "At the same time, we had to satisfy the normal requirements of a classical orchestra by ensuring they had enough light to be able to read music. We also had to consider the projection and design a rig that would fit in with that too.
"The rig had to be super low profile and we didn't have the option to put any trusses above the orchestra," Neville added. "We also couldn't get enough fixtures into the conventional side light ports at the Opera House and we were also very aware that we couldn't ‘kill' many seats to accommodate lighting."
The Mandylights' design consisted of two angled trusses that hug the walls all the way down the venue, out of the way of camera shots within the venue.
"I used heaps of VL5 washes, as their quality of light is still not matched by any other fixture," said Neville. "Every color is usable on the orchestra and every color looks great. The zooms on the Vari*Lite VL3000 and VL1000 spots are fantastic. I used the Vari*Lite VL1000's to do lots of individual spots on the orchestra as well as a lot of the front and back light on host positions as they can change so quickly.
"Everything about the Vari*Lites is so reliable, even the VL5, which is over 15 years old. The fact that only two fixtures out of 51 went down over the entire event is a credit to both Vari*Lite and Bytecraft."
Along with the Grand Final, the Mandylights team was involved in the lighting direction for all the live sites and the events in the week leading up to the main event.
YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 was the most-watched live stream in YouTube's history, beating the previous record from 2009, which was the live streaming of U2's 360 concert from Los Angeles. During the stream, nearly 30 million people logged on around the world.
For more information, please visit www.vari-lite.com and www.jands.com.au.
