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Sennheiser Fills the Stage for Celtic Woman Tour
Celtic Woman, an ensemble show celebrating traditional and contemporary Irish music, first entered the American public's consciousness with a March 2005 PBS special that has since aired over 3,400 times on 316 public broadcasting stations nationwide. The show, featuring vocal and instrumental soloists, musicians, a choir and dancers, is currently on a massive North American tour with forty channels of
Sennheiser wireless microphones and personal monitors plus dozens of wired Evolution 900 series and Neumann backline and instrument microphones.
The show features five principal artists - singers Chloë Agnew, Órla Fallon, Lisa Kelly and Méav Ní Mhaolchatha plus violinist Máiréad Nesbitt – backed by six musicians and an eight-piece choir that also dances. "There are a lot of 'gozintas' and 'gozoutas,'" says front-of-house engineer Wayne Pauley, who explains that his reason for relying so heavily on Sennheiser products can be summed up in just three words: "Quality and consistency."
Celtic Woman: "A New Journey" is indeed a large show. Comments Pauley, "A large number of channels may be in use simultaneously. There can be as many as 19 people on stage at any one time, and there are 18 wireless microphones going at any one time. Plus, there's an RF handheld backup for announce and disc jockeys, plus a spare."
Wireless transmitters include twenty channels of Sennheiser SK 5212 compact bodypacks for use with lavalier vocal and other clip-on mics. Those are combined with ten dual-channel true diversity Sennheiser EM 3532 receivers. The majority of the show's performers utilize personal monitor, including twelve channels of Sennheiser SR 3256 twin-channel stereo transmitters with twenty EK 3253 stereo bodypack receivers. "There are forty-four outputs from monitor world, a huge task for our monitor engineer, Andreas Linde-Buchner, to keep under control," says Pauley.
With so many channels of RF operating simultaneously, Celtic Woman: "A New Journey" depends on Sennheiser's PC-driven NET1 multi-channel wireless hub system to manage and monitor the array of A5000CP antennas, which are integrated with Sennheiser AC3000 antenna combiners and ASA3000 antenna splitters. As Pauley explains, one audio crewmember does nothing but look after the RF systems. "It's a full time job. Guy Gillen, who came to us from the Peter Gabriel tour wrangles all the wireless equipment and makes sure that everything is rock solid every day."
Pauley is typically mixing eighty-five inputs through his digital console, almost half of those being drums and percussion instruments. "There are 40 channels of drums. There are two drummers, one in each upstage corner." The show makes use of four Neumann KM184 condensers for drum overheads, with e902, e904, e905, e906s, e914 and e604 wired microphones also deployed.
In addition to the two drummers, the musical ensemble behind the featured soloists also includes a bass player, a guitarist who doubles on other acoustic instruments, a pianist, and a multi-instrumentalist specializing in such Irish instruments at the Uilleann pipes and whistles. Three wireless e908 clip-on mics are used on the handheld bodhrán frame drums that are so popular in Irish traditional music.
There are some unusual percussion microphone requirements, Pauley relates. "There are two orchestral bass drums on which we use MD441 microphones, and I'm using an e906 on a kodo drum. It has a unique, flabby sound and the 906 works really well for that. It's an interesting sound; not something that you hear every day."
Under the auspices of composer and musical director David Downes, a former musical director of "Riverdance," and chairman and CEO, Dave Kavanagh, Celtic Woman have achieved remarkable success around the world, especially in the United States. Between the eponymous debut album and follow-up, "A Christmas Celebration", Celtic Woman has held the number one position on the Billboard World Music Chart for over 95 consecutive weeks, and has also achieved gold and platinum success with its CD and DVD releases in countries such as Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada.
The show is currently touring the United States and Canada, and has played to sold-out houses on previous tours at Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall, Boston's Opera House and the Greek Theatre in LA. Pauley has a busy touring schedule ahead of him, he says. "I left home the 1st of February and I'll be home the 25th of June. And they're looking at taking the rest of the world by storm later in the year."
10th April 2007
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