This beautiful Castle provided a dramatic backdrop to a spectacular concert that featured the Royal Philharmonic orchestra conducted by John Rigby, the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and the Military Wives Choir. There were also solo performances from tenor James Edwards and soprano Claire Rutter.
Sound, lighting and PA specialists SRD Group provided all of the equipment for the concert, including a large selection of DPA microphones, which it leased from sound engineer Ian Barfoot.
"DPA microphones were ideal for this project because they always deliver fantastic audio quality and are very rugged, which means you can put them through the mill without having to worry about them," Barfoot explains. "The weather for the concert wasn't great and it did rain very heavily all day, but the damp conditions didn't affect the microphones at all. Luckily it stopped raining during the evening, which improved the mood of the audience who had turned up armed with big umbrellas expecting to get soaked."
Barfoot, who was responsible for delivering orchestral stems to the monitor and front of house engineers, provided a selection of DPA microphones - over 60 in total - to capture the orchestras and soloists.
"One of the musicians was playing a very fine Stradivarius, which we miked with a DPA 4060 miniature microphone," he says. "We also used DPA d:vote 4099 instrument microphones to capture the fanfare trumpeters from the RAF Band, who delivered a resonant finale to the evening."
During the evening there were displays from classic World War II aircraft and the concert culminated with a firework spectacular. Despite the weather, Stuart Roberts, managing director of SRD Group, says the event was a resounding success.
"This is the third year running that we have been involved with the summer concert Heritage Events stages at Leeds Castle and we always use Ian's stock of DPA microphones for the orchestras. The weather did create more work in terms of getting equipment on and off the site, but the sound quality on the night was as stunning as ever and it was a really wonderful evening for everyone who attended."
(Jim Evans)
