Held annually in the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, the five-day Taihu Jazz Festival, brings musicians from China and beyond to perform in purpose-built outdoor performance spaces. This year, more than 50 performances included sets from French harmonica master Laurent Maur and trumpeter Li Xiaochuan, who took to the stage of the Taihu Stage Art Centre. Central to these performances were DiGiCo’s Quantum series mixing consoles, with a Quantum 338 at FOH, Quantum 225 at monitors and an SD10 for broadcast.
More than 40 up-and-coming jazz ensembles were invited to perform, making this festival the largest of its kind in terms of performances, participants and scale. A joint initiative between the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), the Jazz Society of the Chinese Musicians’ Association (CMA), and the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy, the festival has grown in size and stature every year.
Three free performance stages – the Dance Art Workshop Stage, the Snowflake Stage and the Instrumental Interactive Stage – were set up by RAC Pro, DiGiCo’s distributor in China, in addition to the Taihu Outdoor Theatre and the Taihu Theatre at the National Centre for the Performing Arts Centre. The Quantum 338 mix surface put everything the engineer needed where it was wanted to keep this complex celebration of jazz,in all its forms, happening across the festival.
‘DiGiCo consoles offer the flexibility and peace of mind required to ensure the success of every performance,’ says Pro system engineer, Li Qi, RAC. ‘The large mixing surfaces and smart key macros ensure that multiple changeovers are smooth and problem free, making this joyful musical journey a thing of beauty for the engineers as well as the audience.’
