The New World Symphony is an elite training orchestra for musicians who go on to work at major symphony orchestras; it's known as one of the most innovative organisations in the country, and the new concert hall is a testament to its state-of-the-art outlook.
"I chose the grandMA2 because of the amount of control we need," says lighting designer Stefan DeWilde, a veteran of the famed Cirque du Soleil. "We have 300 conventional fixtures and hundreds of LEDs in the atrium which run off the console. Then there are 1,600 LEDs in the parking structure and 150 conventional fixtures and 75 moving light in the hall. We're pretty loaded up, and nothing else but grandMA2 made sense to use."
He notes that having a front-end unit to manage all the lighting efficiently was crucial. "Reliability was key, and the sheer amount of information in our show files is substantial. We're running multiple networks, ETCNet2, Art-Net, MA-Net2, plus nine Pandora's Box HD media servers."
DeWilde reports that, "we already have 32 universes for television, theatrical and architectural lighting and run a full calendar of shows."
Among the lights controlled by the grandMA2 are 1,200 conventional ETC and Altman fixtures; 1,600 LEDs from CK, EW, Graze, CB and iCove; 2,000 architectural fixtures; an array of Vari*Lite moving heads; and 26 washes and spots for the atrium. When required, the grandMA2 also controls video, hazers, scent generators and four RGB laser projectors.
A.C.T. Lighting delivered the grandMA2 consoles. A.C.T is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in North America.
(Jim Evans)
