ADJ lights Guido’s Orchestra open air event
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Billed in full as The Maestro & The European Pop Orchestra, Guido’s Orchestra is the brainchild of conductor, violin soloist and composer Guido Dieteren. Having toured throughout Europe and North America as part of numerous traditional orchestras, Guido formed his own ensemble with the intention of performing the most famous melodies of all time from both the classical and pop worlds.
Every summer Guido’s Orchestra, together with a number of guest artists, perform an open air concert for their Dutch fans and for the past couple of years it has taken place in the picturesque market square in the middle of Kerkrade.
This year’s concert was held on the last Saturday of June and had a truly international flavour thanks to guest performances by German vocalists VoXXclub and Australian 10-part harmony outfit The TEN Tenors. The concert was filmed for a future DVD release as well as a TV special due to be screened in Europe this fall.
With a crowd of thousands attending on both nights, TV crews ready to capture the performances and a vast orchestra on stage, the lighting production for the event had to be world-class. The responsibility for delivering this fell to Dutch production company U-Rent who used almost 300 ADJ lighting fixtures to create a light show that complemented and enhanced the wide variety of musical styles performed by the orchestra and their guests.
“All the fixtures we used for the concert were carefully chosen during our preparation for the event,” explains U-Rent’s Natascha Huisman, “so we knew they would have both the required output and features. The ADJ fixtures worked extremely well, giving us the brightness and variety of effects we needed, while also proving reliable and easy to use.”
The aerial lighting rig consisted of 18 clusters of fixtures, each comprising one of ADJ’s flagship Vizi CMY300 hybrid moving heads and two of ADJ’s new Vizi Wash Z19 moving head wash units. These were mounted to black pipes, connected at various heights to the roof of the stage, which blended in with a black background to give the impression the lights were floating in the air above the orchestra.
Launched earlier this year, the Vizi Wash Z19 is a compact yet punchy moving head wash fixture powered by 19 20W quad colour RGBW LEDs. For the Guido’s Orchestra concert they provided the primary source of colour washing for the stage.
U-Rent installed ADJ’s 15 HEX BAR IP linear LED fixtures across the front of the stage, facing out towards the audience, as well as all the way around the curved roof structure.
Audience blinders are an essential part of most concert lighting rigs, especially those taking place outside, and for this production U-Rent selected ADJ’s modular Encore Burst 200 units for the task.
Atmospherics for the concerts were also handled by ADJ products, with two Entourage faze machines alongside a pair of Entour Cyclone DMX-controlled fans filling the roof of the stage with a beam-enhancing mist. Meanwhile illumination of the orchestra itself was covered by ADJ’s FR150Z LED-powered Fresnel fixtures that were positioned at FOH as well as on the back of the moving head clusters.
Away from the stage, ADJ fixtures were also used to provide ambient light in the market square, illuminating the buildings that surrounded the concert venue in colours that changed to synchronize with the show.
“The stage looked magnificent and all of the people who worked on the show were very happy with it,” confirms Natascha. “We were also very happy that we were able to partner with ADJ on this event. The people who work there are on the same page with us and understand the meaning of this event for Kerkrade and all the countries in which it will be shown.”
(Jim Evans)
