Norbert Ommer is awarded the Opus AVantgarde

The "Opus" is considered one of the most prestigious awards for outstanding stage projects. Since 2002, it has been awarded at Prolight + Sound by a jury of experts from industry, associations, trade publications and representatives of Messe Frankfurt. It recognizes the creative use of technology in the design of theater or stage productions, concerts, conferences and open-air events. The non-endowed honorary award is sponsored by the Association for Media and Event Technology (VPLT), the European Association of Event Centers (EVVC) and Messe Frankfurt.

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.

Welcome to Surrogate Cities by Heiner Goebbels, a sound world unlike anything you have experienced before. First performed a quarter of a century ago, Heiner Goebbels portrait of a metropolis forces us to confront our urban dreams - and urban night-mares. Almost Mahler-like in scale, Goebbels work is grounded in the Austro-German musical tradition while blending in elements of jazz, blues, electronics and vocals in a manner that is impossible to classify.

Were Heiner Goebbels only a composer, he would still be one of the most fascinating artists in time. Over the course of a career that now spans more than 40 years, Goebbels has created a body of work in which the idioms of art-rock and jazz mix with those of mid-20th-century modernism, spoken words, quotations from classical compositions and "concrete" sounds – that is, recorded sounds of machines, nature and everyday life. His egalitarian approach to these diverse sonic elements has yielded music that is eclectic and unpredictable in the best post-modern way.

But Goebbels has not confined himself just to composing music, at least as that activity is traditionally conceived. Instead, he has been strongly engaged with theater throughout his career - not as a composer writing music to dramatic texts, in the manner of opera composers, but as a musician speaking to infuse a high degree of theatricality into all his compositions. More precisely, Goebbels has endeavored to blend music and theater in new ways, creating concerts that are as much dramatic events as musical ones, and radio plays that are as much musical compositions as
theater pieces.

In 1994, Goebbels composed his most ambitious orchestral work up to that
time. Scored for large orchestra, mezzo-soprano, speaker and digital sound sampler, Surrogate Cities was conceived, the composer said, as "an attempt to approach the phenomenon of the city from various sides, to tell stories of cities, expose oneself to them, observe them; it is material about metropolises that has accumulated over the course of time."

Using texts by Heiner Müller, American novelist Paul Auster and Irish writer Hugo Hamilton (whose novel Surrogate Cities gives the piece its title), the work examines its subject from different perspectives and using varied musical ideas and materials.
Among the latter are sounds of urban life recorded, altered and played on a digital sound sampler.

The Surrogate Cities concert in Zagreb took place in a kind of old socialistic concert place. The challenge here was to perform with only one general rehearsal..., at the end it was a miraculous live mix session and should be annual accounting operation for all sound director students. It is to observe that the mixing desk operates only for
some hours during general rehearsal and concert, but not during the preparation time.

Seattle was a perfectly prepared sound system with elements from L-acoustic and D&B audio. The hall itself was one of these rather “over acoustic places” with balconies on the side and rear and a main loud speaker system that was flown a bit to high due to the balcony areas.

Basel was the first time Surrogate Cities was performed out door. The orchestra was set up on a cement platform with out roof, so a really free field sound situation. If the first annual accounting operation for sound directors was in Zagreb, here was definitely the second one.
The PA system came from Clear Brothers, a positive good experience also for orchestra sound.

After the concert in Seattle, the Classical Voice North America wrote:
”When pace and volume increased, there was so much going on that it was impossible to tell what was amplified and what was acoustic”.

Following the concert in Basel, a professional sound mixer with many years of orchestra work resumed: “... thank you for that wonderful outstanding orchestra mix ...”.

THE PLACE / PARK AVENUE ARMORY NEW YORK CITY

The Armory is one of America's finest landmarks, combining a rich social and military history with an extraordinarily ensemble of
19th-century period rooms.
The New York City Landmarks Commission has described the Park Avenue Armory's magnificent interiors, designed by masters of the American Aesthetic Movement, as "the single most important collection of 19th-century interiors to survive intact in one building?, while the expansive drill hall is considered an important monument in the history of American engineering. Completed in 1881, the Armory served as a military, cultural and social center for the Regiment as well as New York society of the Gilded Age.

Part American palace, part industrial shed, Park Avenue Armory is dedicated to supporting unconventional works in the visual and performing arts that need non-traditional spaces for their full realization, enabling artists to create and audiences to consume epic and adventurous presentations that can not be mounted elsewhere in New York City.

In 2006, the Armory opened its doors to visionary artists, directors, and impresarios who have provided extraordinary experiences in a range of art forms which led to the New York Times proclaiming that "Park Avenue Armory... has arrived as the most important new cultural institution in New York City."

WADE THOMPSON DRILL HALL

Reminiscent of the original Grand Central Depot and the great train stations of Europe, the Wade Thompson Drill Hall comprises 55,000 square feet of open, un-columned space, making it one of the largest unobstructed spaces of its kind in New York.
Its 80-foot-high barrel vaulted roof or "balloon shed" is the oldest of this scale in America, featuring eleven elliptical wrought iron arches designed by Charles Macdonald. Before the Armory current phase as a cultural institution, the soaring drill hall was home to many major events, including the May Music Festival in 1881 with an orchestra of 500 and a chorus of 1.200 conducted by Leopold Damrosch a full Wagner program conducted by Theodore Thomas in 1882 fantastically themed balls of the 1920s and 1930s and the Commonwealth Society Ball attended by a young Queen Elizabeth II.

In 2007, Park Avenue Armory began a comprehensive renovation and restoration of his historic building, which had been named one of the "100 Most Endangered Historic Sites in the World" by the World Monuments Fund in 2000. As envisioned by architects Herzog & de Meuron, the multi-year project will advance the transformation of the Armory to house a new type of cultural institution dedicated to the creation and presentation of visual and performing art that cannot be realized within the limitations of traditional performance halls and white-wall museums.

ABOUT DE MATERIE

One of Europe's most eminent and influential composers, Louis Andriessen creates music that is marked by the combination of forward propulsion, sparseness, and clarity from large blocks of sound to minimalism.
But there is nothing minimal about DE MATERIE, starting with its all-encompassing theme: the relationship between matter and spirit.

As much a series of visions as a piece of music theatre, this monumental masterwork is staged by visionary director Heiner Goebbels in a highly-imaginative production with stunning visual imagery to help convey its meaning, with references to Mondrian and Madame Curie as well as floating zeppelins and a flock of sheep.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) under the direction of Peter Rundel takes on the sonically varied score, ranging
from early Renaissance, to the jazz-tinged roaring 20s, to contemporary music of today. The vastness of the Wade Thompson Drill Hall is the perfect setting to fully realize this rarely-staged work, which premiered more than 25 years ago and only now makes its highly-anticipated North American stage premiere.

ABOUT THE ELECTROACOUSTIC SET UP

The sound design was executed by Stefan Holzt and Norbert Ommer. They where also working together at previous projects like the Ruhrtriennale.

As first orchestra loudspeaker set up they used 30 x MEYER SOUND MELODIE systems on three points above the orchestra platform.
As second orchestra loudspeaker set up they used 16 x MEYER SOUND LYON systems flowing on two points in the middle of the hall because the orchestra moves whilst performing.
For first sound localisation, they used 12 x MEYER SOUND JM-1P systems at different positions.
For the low end of sound the installation implies 8 x MEYER SOUND 700-HP speakers under the platform.
For monitoring and near fill reasons, 16 x MEYER SOUND UPA-1P, 14 x D&B E4 and 4 x MEYER SOUND UPM where in use.

For sound distribution the design needs 2 x MEYER SOUND GALILEO CALLISTO 616 and 2 x YAMAHA DME64 systems.

The soundboard was a DIGICO SD7T with two racks, one fixed and the other movable with the orchestra stage.

For reverberation a LEXICON 960 was used.

The input channel list includes around 130 channels.

The sound direction was performed by Norbert Ommer.

The New York Classical Review wrote:
Norbert Ommer's sound direction achieves an impressive blend of miked instruments and voices...!

Norbert Ommer (sound director) and the Ensemble Modern are awarded the Echo Klassik 2004

The Echo Klassik is a widely known and respected German award for artists and productions in the area of classical music. It is awarded once every year in October by the German Phono Academy - in 2004 for the 11th time.
The Echo is considered the highest German award for recorded music.

Norbert Ommer was awarded the Golden Bobby 2002

Norbert Ommer, sound director of Ensemble Modern and sound director of several premieres e.g. by Peter Eötvös, Heiner Goebbels, Michel Gordon, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich and Frank Zappa, was awarded the Golden Bobby 2002. The price, given out for the first time by the VDT (Society of German Sound Masters) during the sound master meeting on November 24, 2002 in Hannover, is awarded for extraordinary performances in sound design and sound directing.

Prize-winning was his superb sound directing of the European premieres (Amsterdam, Vienna, London, Berlin, Paris and Lisboa) of Steve Reich's video opera "Three Tales".