A recent classic concert at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Concert Hall saw NHK Symphony Orchestra soloist Nobuaki Fukukawa attempt to emulate his recordings from King Records, and perform music in the form of an eight-horn ensemble – by overdubbing himself.
Along with King Records, the internationally noted French horn player consulted Koichi Ishimaru at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre with the suggestion that the loudspeakers be treated as musical instruments – he wanted to perform live on stage to create the one part with the seven remaining parts played back one-by-one through the surround speakers from Pro Tools.
The system to achieve this had to be able to reproduce the accurate horn tone and unique localisation with natural sound. Ishimaru selected Martin Audio’s LE100: ‘I was particular about coaxial speakers because they can accurately express the sound source of musical instruments,’ he explains. ‘I was convinced that it was going to be successful.’
Fukukawa stood in the centre of the stage surrounded by seven chairs, each of which supported an LE100, arranged facing in different directions. ‘The bell of a horn is usually facing backwards when being played and so, instead of pointing the speaker directly to the audience seats, I tried a similar approach. This allowed us to reproduce the unique soft sound.’
The idea of matching the start of the performance and the recorded sound was also unique. Using a video device called a conductor monitor, which has extremely low latency, Fukukawa played according to his own conducting video, recorded in advance. Since the original album was made in the same way, it was a straightforward process to do this for the live performance.
Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Concert Hall is renowned for its acoustics, and these octet performances of Star Wars and Mahler Symphony No5 Adagietto – Death in Venice were met by a delighted audience, won over by an innovative approach to immersive sound.
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