Montreal invests in VR; 

Welsh Singer Sets New Record 

TWICM 8-02-19

It’s this week in Classical Music; an update on what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

you will soon be able to experience the Montreal Symphony in a new way----in a fully immersive audio environment on your phone.  Madeleine Careau, MSO’s CEO said the  orchestra is always looking for new ways to reach audiences beyond the concert hall.

The research programs they’ll be involved in are for collective spontaneous immersion and acoustic simulation for virtual reality and augmented reality.

The OSM already has opened a space just beside its concert hall  to help people discover the history of the orchestra via virtual reality. For the next three years, the tech team will spend a week each year recording orchestra rehearsals and concerts to create immersive acoustic projects.

“we want to use these recordings for an augmented reality smartphone app that we will be launching in the upcoming months and years,” said Simon Ouellette, head of special projects for the symphony.

What Montreal is known for worldwide is our artistic creations and our engineers. But we’ve never had them work together. What the project is doing is bringing the artists and the engineers together.”

 “An orchestra is 100 musicians who all have to travel somewhere every time there’s a concert. Now we’re democratizing the experience of listening to an orchestra.”

A Welsh musician has recently broken the record for the lowest vocal note sung by a female.

Helen Leahey, nicknamed ‘Bass Queen’, sang at an incredibly deep 72.5 hertz(es) in her attempt at the Wagner Music School in Koblenz, Germany. 

Helen, originally from St Asaph in Wales but now living in Germany, has recently returned to singing after the birth of her first child.

"Everywhere I sing, I hear that nobody has heard a woman who can hit the low notes like me. … I wanted to see how unique my voice truly is.

"As a child I was obsessed with Guinness World Records books and thought it would be wonderful if I could be part of the record-breaking family!"

Helen’s record attempt spanned 10 minutes, as she worked towards the lowest note she could.

"After some warming up I managed to sing from note D5 (three octaves above) to D2 on the piano."

The record to beat was a musical note at 82.4 hertz(es).

After a couple of attempts, sound engineer Tobias Jacobs confirmed Helen had achieved the record-breaking low note.

Helen’s naturally deep voice has helped define and shape her music career, as has Celtic roots. In her songs, many instruments can be heard, including the guitar, Irish bouzouki, harmonica and the Irish drum. 

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbach dot org; you’ll find us under “podcasts”--follow us on FB, twitter and Instagram, don’t forget to add our Kbach mobile app to your phone or device; check out the Most Wanted Hour with Linda Cassidy, playing your top 100 classical picks every weekday at noon.  I’m Randy Kinkel, for KBACH’s “This Week in Classical Music”.