Photographic Evidence That We're Actually Working This Week

So, as promised, here are a few shots I managed to squeeze off in between takes of Bruckner 4 at today's recording sessions at Orchestra Hall. (Click any of the images for a full-size version.) First off, here's a look at the chaotic, microphone-strewn mess that our stage becomes during one of these weeks...

Notice that not only are there mics and cables everywhere, but also an assortment of spotlights you would expect to find at a neighborhood ballpark. There's a good reason for these: the stage lights at Orchestra Hall, being more than thirty years old, actually emit a low-level hum that BIS's oh-so-sensitive mics pick up when we're playing softly. So they bring in their own lights and leave the rest of the hall dark while we're recording, which creates a very eerie glow around the auditorium.

Oh, yeah, and they hang giant curtains from the rear of the house, all the way from the third tier to the floor. Since we're close-miked for BIS recordings, they don't want to capture any reflected sound from the empty hall (which is much more echo-prone without an audience there to soak up sound waves,) and the curtains apparently help with that. At least, I assume they do, because I would imagine that it's a heck of a lot of work to get them up there.


This is a shot of the control room, which is ordinarily a backstage storage space and rehearsal room. The BIS crew sets up shop here with all manner of high-tech recording, mixing, and playback equipment, plus at least three laptop computers dialed into whatever it is they do with the noises we make, and in between takes, Osmo, Jorja, and an ever-changing assortment of the rest of us pile into the room to listen to the playback and decide what sounds good enough to make the cut, and what needs to be redone, and redone, and redone again until it's perfect. During the playback that was going on in this shot, you've got trombonist Kari Sundstrom and timpanist Peter Kogan wearing the headphones in the foreground, and BIS producer Robert Suff at the main mixing table with Osmo and two other BIS engineers who I believe are named Hans and Fabian.


This is the other thing that goes on in hurried fashion when a break in the session is called, which happens often to allow for playback. Principal musicians leap to confer with Osmo at the podium about mistakes or imperfections they already know will need to be rerecorded when we continue. In this shot, Jorja and Osmo confer in the background, while principal viola Tom Turner and assistant concertmaster Roger Frisch hold an urgent conversation which sounded to me like it had nothing whatsoever to do with Bruckner. Oh, and there's one other individual in the photo, lurking back there in the shadows just to the right of Jorja...


That's producer Rob Suff again. Or at least, that's the main contact most of us will have with him over the course of the week, as he literally calls the shots to the stage from back at his desk in the control room. Rob is utterly ruthless, in that perfectly mannered and unfailingly polite way that only the British seem able to achieve. I'm sure I'll have more on him as the week goes on.

For now, we seem to be more or less on schedule, with the first movement of Bruckner in the can, and just over half of the slow movement done as well. We've technically got another day and a half of session time to finish the symphony, but I've heard rumors that Osmo and Rob would like to get an early start on the piano concerto if at all possible, so things could get tight. In any case, we're back at it bright and early tomorrow, and I'll update either Tuesday or Wednesday night...