Sound Icons National Sawdust and Meyer Sound Launch Partnership at Classical:NEXT in Rotterdam May 15
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BROOKLYN, NY (May 14, 2019) — Ahead of its fifth season, National Sawdust continues to stretch the boundaries of creative possibility through the launch of a long-term sound partnership with the legendary Berkeley company Meyer Sound. Meyer Sound’s Constellation® acoustic system as well as its immersive component Spacemap® will be installed over the summer, providing tools for National Sawdust artists to boldly experiment with and expand upon their creations and creative processes, and completing an extraordinary new sound experience that began with the switch to a state-of-the-art Meyer Sound PA system at the start of 2019. National Sawdust’s fifth season will kick off this September with a custom experience that showcases this partnership. Artists and creators will continue to explore the full scope of this dynamic, new auditory playground throughout the season.
Paola Prestini, composer, co-founder, and Artistic Director of National Sawdust, said:
“Having the Meyer Sound installation is a dream scenario for our artists. It has always been a priority for National Sawdust to provide the highest quality in sound for our artistic discoveries. This incredible new step will open further possibilities of experimentation with the indisputably superb quality that Meyer Sound is known for. This marks a significant step in our history.”
With Meyer Sound’s Constellation® acoustic system, National Sawdust artists will be able to create and work within multiple acoustics, all with the press of a button, while its immersive component Spacemap® will allow them to explore and play with three-dimensional spatial sound, using the sophisticated, multi-channel panning system. The venue’s technical crew is no less enthusiastic. National Sawdust’s Technical Director, Garth MacAleavey, raves about the new system:“Working with Meyer Sound has been an incredible opportunity for me as a sound designer. Introducing them to my home at National Sawdust and having this partnership here is a dream come true.”
Sound pioneer and Meyer Sound founder John Meyer explains:
“Central to our research and development of new technologies is the idea of collaboration: we really value the partnerships we have with artists onstage, those who listen to them, and those who design performance spaces. We are constantly striving to offer the truest possible account of performances and to put forward the feelings the artist is trying to convey with their material.”
This announcement comes just before National Sawdust makes its European debut presenting the opening showcase at the 2019 Classical:NEXT conference in Rotterdam, The Netherlands on May 15, 2019. National Sawdust: HEAR IT NEW!, curated by Prestini and produced by Director of National Sawdust Projects Holly Hunter, will feature author, playwright/director, and poet IONE leading participants through composer, pioneer, and founder of the practice of Deep Listening® Pauline Oliveros’s The World-Wide Tuning Meditation, which allows audiences to experience “a way of listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what you are doing”; cellist Amanda Gookin performing To Tell A Story, composed by Prestini with sound design by Sxip Shirey, from her feminist work Forward Music Project 2.0: in this skin; a specially commissioned short film, Kipatsi, Nija, Añaantsi (Land, Water, Life), directed by filmmaker Murat Eyuboglu, with live performance by Peruvian composer/performer Pauchi Sasaki; and composer and National Sawdust Hildegard Competition Award–winner Emma O’Halloran’s composition Constellations performed by members of Young DoelenEnsemble. Support for National Sawdust at Classical:NEXT is provided by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.
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About Meyer Sound
In the art and science of sound, John Meyer has long been recognized as a master and a pioneer. At Meyer Sound Laboratories, he has invented systems to fulfill a singular vision of how sound can be delivered, be it music or speech. The Company, co-founded in 1979 with his wife, Helen, in Berkeley, California, marries old-fashioned craftsmanship, painstaking research and development, and forward-thinking technology in its pursuit of perfection – leading to innovations in support of musicians and creators, and in service of audiences, worldwide.
Meyer Sound systems support extraordinary audience experiences, whether for artists such as John Adams, Leif Ove Andsnes, Dave Matthews, Metallica, Ed Sheeran, Reggie Watts, Celine Dion, or Herbie Hancock, or in celebrated music venues such as St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, or New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Meyer Sound’s flexible, highly refined Constellation® acoustic system has been embraced by composers, conductors, and musicians in 27 countries on five continents, in spaces ranging from the intimate SoundBox of the San Francisco Symphony to Norway’s Riddersalen (which hosts Leif Ove Andsnes’s annual chamber music festival) and the Singapore Conference Hall (home to the Singapore Chinese Orchestra).
An extraordinary breakthrough in acoustical science, Constellation allows for a single physical space to emulate the acoustics of a chamber music venue, symphony hall, or vast cathedral (and even an ideal classroom or rehearsal studio) – all with the press of a button. And with the multi-channel panning available through Spacemap®, artists can explore and play with three-dimensional spatial sound, stretching the boundaries of creative possibility.
About National Sawdust
National Sawdust’s mission is to build new audiences for classical and new music by providing outstanding resources and programmatic support to both emerging and established artists and composers. Centered on discovery within music, its programming introduces audiences to new artists and styles, and introduces artists to new audiences. An incubator of new music, National Sawdust also provides artists the space, time, and resources they need to create their art.
National Sawdust is both a state-of-the-art performance venue and a recording studio, housed within a preserved century-old sawdust factory. The building itself has also won multiple architecture awards.
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Press Contact: David Clarke
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© 21C Media Group, May 2019