Music For Every Ear

Shure Performs For Crossover Audiences at Chicago’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion

 

CHICAGO, IL, October 5, 2007— As a crown jewel of Millennium Park, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion is one of Chicago's premier outdoor performing arts venues. Designed by architect Frank Gehry as the new home of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, the venue's enormous ribbons of stainless steel billow above a town known for both its architecture and love of music ranging from R&B and the blues to jazz and classical.

 

"In context, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion is quite at home in Millennium Park and the City of Chicago," says Shure's Jonathan Laney, who served as one of the driving forces behind systems integration introduced at the 12,000 capacity venue in 2004 while with the Talaske Group Inc., an audio and acoustical consulting firm. "The park contains an eclectic collection of architectural elements from all over the world--what better place could you think of to execute an original Gehry design? Similarly, while the pavilion was built for the Grant Park Symphony, what better place could you think of to host cool jazz, and even rock 'n' roll, than in the center of a city with an appreciation for sounds from around the globe?"

 

Widely-varying musical acts seen and heard at the pavilion this summer ranged from the Grant Park Symphony to jazz from Reginald Robinson, the stylings of brilliant young Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter, and the alt rock expressions of Wilco. Cutting across all these genres, Shure Inc. maintained a regular stage presence throughout the entire season that brought sounds captured by a mix of microphones to audiences of all description.

 

"The KSM137 has worked out unbelievably well on viola, violin, harp, piano, celeste, and percussion," Grant Park Symphony FOH engineer Chris Willis is happy to report. "Likewise, KSM32s can be heard regularly in my mix on solo piano and the choir, while the KSM44 stands-in for French horns. The clarity of these mics, plus their smooth performance, are vital ingredients to my overall approach, which is to make it seem that there is no sound reinforcement at all. This is, after all, music many are accustomed to hearing in an indoor acoustical setting. The qualities of these Shure mics helps me bring that same kind of warmth outdoors."

 

Given control over the house mix for the symphony at Pritzker Pavilion, Willis has an alter ego who pushes faders for jazz and other events hosted at the facility, John Lisiecki. Both men come to the venue from Kobotech, Inc., a Chicago-based production and management staffing company.

 

"What do I use Shure's KSM137 for?" Lisiecki asks rhetorically. "Everything, literally. And the KSM9 has become a fixture for my vocals too. When I'm mixing jazz here, my strategy revolves around the principle that less is more. The stage at Pritzker is huge, which is what you need for the Grant Park Symphony. Accurately representing the sonic qualities of ensembles that are much smaller requires a mindful approach--one that's minimalist in form so that you don't wind up coloring your mix with the acoustical energy that can build up in this cavernous stage house. These Shure mics capture the sounds I want and nothing more, and their response handles the lows and ultra-highs of any performance with realism that's hard to find in a mic."

 

A sum total of 4,000 seats are fixed permanently in front of the Pritzker Pavilion. Immediately to the rear of these seats lies the green expanse of Millennium Park's 95,000 square foot Great Lawn. A trellis of steel tubing spans both areas, serving as the supporting system for the house sound system, which includes LARES enhancement that simulates the reflected and reverberant energy of an indoor performance venue. In keeping with a long-standing Chicago tradition, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra performs for free weekly throughout the summer months.

 


Release 38