Chinese violin artist Song Fei is hailed by the media as the “new generation of talented female violin players”, “world-famous contemporary Chinese erhu player among international orchestras”, “leader in Chinese folk music” and “Chinese erhu Queen.”
SongFei’s Along the River During the Qingming Festival musical performed two days in November, at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, China supported by loudspeakers from Alcons.
Along the River During the Qingming Festival is one of the ten most famous paintings in China. It captures the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing, today’s Kaifeng, from the Northern Song period. Successive scenes reveal the lifestyle of all levels of society from rich to poor, as well as different economic activities in the countryside and the city, with manifest period clothing and architecture.
Contrary to most of the art pieces, that were first in the form of music and later in images, SongFei’s Along the River During the Qingming Festival musical was based on the famous painting that was made nearly a thousand years ago. This performance combined music with image to create a tremendously authentic spectacle, leading the audience to walk through that period of time.
Combining audio and visual without disturbing the integral aesthetics was the first consideration of the director.
Chief sound designer of this musical, Tian, about the reason he chose an Alcons solution: “The Alcons QR24 pro-ribbon line-source column is especially suitable for these kinds of performances in theaters, as its low profile does not affect the decoration of the stage scenery.”
In this musical, a total of 12 Alcons QR24 pro-ribbon array columns and 4 Alcons BF362 subwoofers were deployed to cover the auditorium. The QR24 comprises four 6.5-inch woofers with two 12-inch proprietary RBN1203 pro-ribbon tweeters; The BF362 features double 18-inch woofers in X-venting configuration. All speaker systems were driven by Alcons Sentinel 10 4-channel DSP amplified loudspeaker controllers, with 192kHz AES3 inputs.
The music melted into the scene with Alcons’ high-resolution sound reproduction and Tian gave a thumbs-up for Alcons’ excellent performance. “Alcons really surprised me; When I set up an Alcons sound system, the only thing I need to do is to recall the right factory setting in the processor and what I got is crystal-clear Hifi sound without any EQ or adjustment needed.”
“The coverage angle of this speaker is so well controlled that it offers a flat SPL throughout the audience, while also reducing the disturbance to the artists on stage hugely.” says Tian.
Miss Chen, the general director of this musical also gave particularly high evaluation for the clear sound of the speaker and the excellent feedback from the visitors.