In Saturday’s (1/29) Miami Herald, David Smiley writes, “Traditional isn’t quite what the New World Symphony was going for when it hired architect Frank Gehry and aspired to create a new symphonic experience by building a high-tech system to broadcast live performances on the massive facade of the new $160 million New World Center. Friday night, the symphony reintroduced itself to South Beach in high definition by ‘Wallcast.’ Using four industrial projectors, technicians projected images of a live concert onto the 7,000-square-foot projection wall, while dozens of surround-sound speakers simulcast the audio of the performance for the hundreds who gathered in the adjacent Miami Beach SoundScape Park. The biweekly wallcasts are a key part of the New World’s intention to appeal to the masses and go beyond the confines of the concert hall, symphony leaders and the building’s designers say. … The projectors, which pour out an incredible 35,000 lumens each, work in quadrants to create one image, which is stitched together and smoothed over by a computer. At the same time, microphones placed strategically around the hall pick up the loudest tympani strikes and the softest trumpet sounds.”
Posted February 1, 2011
