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New BBC Concert Hall Broadcasts Inaugural Performance
The inaugural concert of Cardiff's impressive new concert studio will be broadcast today, 23rd January 2009, on BBC Radio 3.
A new BBC concert studio, which forms the second phase of the Wales Millennium Centre at Cardiff Bay, was completed in September 2008 and handed over to BBC Wales for fitting out. The result of a collaboration between Sir Robert McAlpine Developments and Arup - the global firm of design, engineering and business consultants - the new BBC Hoddinott Hall features a 350-seat auditorium, rehearsal rooms and office space. The building will be the new home of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC National Chorus of Wales and is named after the late Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott, who died earlier this year. BBC Hoddinott Hall is a direct replacement for Studio 1 at Llandaff, Cardiff, which the orchestra has progressively outgrown since the late 60s.
Ian Knowles, the project director for Arup Acoustics, said: "We had successfully delivered a new home for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at Glasgow City Halls and the new broadcasting headquarters for BBC Scotland at Pacific Quay and so were well placed to work on this new orchestral studio.
"We worked alongside Sir Robert McAlpine and architects Capita Architecture right at the beginning of the design process so that we were able to integrate the key acoustic elements from the outset.
"Our job was to optimise potential space, given the constraints of the site - achieving the necessary 400 sq m area for the orchestra to rehearse, record, broadcast and perform in, supported by an additional 230sqm for audience and chorus seating," he said.
With the auditorium to be used for rehearsals, studio recordings and public concerts, the BBC wanted a consistent reverberant sound quality for the hall regardless of whether an audience were in attendance. To achieve the right reverberance, sliding acoustic panels were designed and installed at high level to form an acoustic 'duvet', controllable with a hand held remote unit.
These panels provide very powerful acoustic absorption: as Knowles explained, "drapes wouldn't have done the job because they don't provide a sufficient quantifiable change in low frequency absorption."
Acoustic reflectors can also be raised and lowered from the ceiling, both to adjust the sound for the benefit of the orchestra and to change the performance lighting embedded within them.
BBC Hoddinott Hall bucks the traditional fan shape of orchestra performance platforms, instead maximising the available playing space by having a parallel walls with a zig-zag 'sawtooth' profile to simulate the acoustic properties of a fan shape. Timber battens of different thickness were attached vertically to provide sound diffusion - more densely at the stage end, less so at the audience end.
The hall and five rehearsal spaces are a box-in-box construction, with the entire frame resting on isolating rubber pads, thereby controlling external noise intrusion from any local building works or the underground car park. The inner box is made from precast concrete panels for speed of construction.
"Based on our computer modelling, we knew that the sound quality in the studio would be excellent," Knowles said.
"Once everything was installed, the BBC orchestra visited for a series of tests playing, among other things, Verdi's Requiem - which sounded amazing."
This test concert was also recorded for use in Arup's SoundLab, where its acoustic timbre will be used to compare with recordings from the world's best concert halls and opera houses.
23rd January 2009
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