A House of Call - London
London Philharmonic Orchestra A House of Call: my Imaginary Notebook (2020) from Heiner Goebbels
The London Philharmonic were superb in the UK premiere of Heiner Goebbels 15-movement work, which is studded with found recordings. First performed in 2021, it was his first score for full orchestra in more than a quarter of a century and, at 105 minutes, it is one of his longest works to date.
Since I was in charge of the sound design and also the sound direction at the premiere and all previous performances (except Porto) it was a special pleasure for me to do this also for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The venue, the Royal Festival Hall, was familiar to me from numerous performances before the renovation with Karl Heinz Stockhausen and the Ensemble Modern, and after the renovation, with the WDR Big Band and Bill Laurance.
But ”A House of Call” makes completely different demands on the sound designer and sound director. In this performance, as I have already described in my interview about the performance in Munich, there is a completely unusual structure of the orchestra. This orchestral sound is to be mixed live, with historical tape recordings of the composer.
For this purpose, the entire orchestra is microphoned.
Also in London I used a classic "close micing" of the orchestral instruments, this time focusing on microphones from DPA.
Compared to previous performances, I was able to use a YAMAHA RIVAGE PM10, which was very nice, even if I could not use the RPio622.
The PA consisted of an L-C-R combination of MEYER SOUND M`ELODIE line arrays, which worked wonderfully in this hall.
I was supported by the company Richard Nowell Sound, which was a great gift.
