BY DR EMMA SULLIVAN
CutCommon is an official media partner of the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall. We are also proud of our regular contributor Emma Sullivan — herself a double bassist who gave an outstanding performance on the MDCH stage as part of its recent festival! In this interview, we delve even further backstage to show you how the MDCH brings its concerts to life.
There is little doubt that, for lovers of classical music, the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall has been a bright light in a rather dark couple of months.
At the helm of the thriving social enterprise, co-directors Chris Howlett and Adele Schonhardt have already curated over 50 concerts – and raised more than $170,000 for local musicians (and rapidly counting).
There has been considerable focus on the talent of performers involved in the MDCH initiative – and justly so. But there are also some stars behind the scenes making the magic happen at every performance.
Among these are the engineers from presenting partner 5stream, who are responsible for delivering a high-quality concert experience directly into each listener’s home. Their skill allows each ticket holder to see every facial expression up close, and hear every note of each performance with perfect clarity – all while relaxing on their couch in their own living room!
I connected with Tim Kelly, managing director of 5Stream, to gain some insight into the world of live streaming – and some advice for those of us just venturing into the arts and technology space.
Tim, you come from a musical background, as an instrumentalist. What sparked your interest in recording and streaming live events, and how did you get started in the industry?
I studied tuba performance at University of Melbourne as part of an Arts/Music double degree. I decided that a tuba player with a philosophy major might need to have slightly broader career horizons, and started working part time for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, and the ABC doing some production work. I also picked up some work with [the Melbourne Youth Orchestras].
I kept up studies and really excelled at my oompah skills, but decided that life as a professional tuba player was not something I was that keen to pursue.
A constant through my studies and work was a love of bringing people together for a live event. From performing on stage, to stage managing performances, I really enjoyed the thrill of needing to deliver something perfect in the moment, where there were no second chances.
In 2007, my [University of Melbourne] head of brass Geoff Collinson founded an online startup called The Music Page. The plan was to offer online lessons and live streams of concert performances. I joined the company in 2008 and really got into the streaming, IT, and broadcast space. We were very early adopters of live streaming technology, and were quite world-leading in terms of how we delivered content. Although I had no formal training, being in the live streaming world in the dark ages of the internet really helped me get ahead of the curve.
I continued working with The Music Page and its various iterations until 2014 when my colleagues Aidan Barrett, Paul Evans, and I founded 5stream. Ever since then, we have been busy with software development around video streaming technology as well as delivering high quality on-site productions.
My favourite jobs are the ones where arts and technology intersect. I love directing multi-camera shoots of orchestral or ballet performances, and being part of the action as they get streamed out.
I imagine, like most organisations related to the arts, your business has also been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. How has 5stream been affected by the restrictions?
At the start of 2020, the bulk of our customers were sports-related. We worked closely delivering content for Cricket Australia, AFL, FFA, NRL, and many thousands of second- and third-tier sports matches around the world. When the pandemic was declared, all of the sports work vanished almost overnight, leaving us in a very uncertain position.
We lost almost all the work we thought we had, and quickly began pushing to find new streaming opportunities in April.
We are still here, and we have found some growth opportunities that we never thought existed. Strange times for everyone, but it feels good to be providing services to bring people together online.
Why did you want to get involved with the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall initiative?
I think it is crucial that the arts are available for audiences. To me, art is about connecting artists and audiences — and communicating some kind of idea or feeling that can’t be easily expressed in words.
With Australia in isolation, I think it’s more important than ever that people can feel the connection that the arts, and especially live performance arts, can bring.
I also know heaps of Melbourne musicians, and could not stand by doing nothing when I knew lots of them were facing huge loss of income.
Melbourne Digital Concert Hall is required to remain compliant with the stringent government health and safety recommendations in place. What does this mean for you logistically with setting up, shooting, and streaming each recital?
We are very careful with social distancing, but it is quite easy to keep our distance when there is so much space and so few people in the room.
We have just one technician present at each concert to manage the stream, do the camera work, and mix the audio. That means we need to have superstar streaming engineers in place, who essentially do the work of three people when the concert is live.
I guess the trickiest thing with all of this is making sure we can have our best operators available for MDCH while still keeping the rest of the business running smoothly.
In what ways do you think the MDCH experience is similar to a live concert experience, and in what ways is it different?
Nothing will ever be as good as experiencing live music in the room. But, experiencing a super high-quality live broadcast is a fantastic experience.
I try to explain it like watching sport: if you go to a cricket match, you have a certain experience of the event. You will be sitting in a seat a long way from the action, with just your viewpoint, interacting with people around you and having a good time.
If you watch cricket on TV, you get a completely different experience: close-up shots, commentary, replays, extra information about what is going on; all sorts of things that just don’t happen when you’re there in person.
I think the same is true of consuming a performance via a live broadcast. Audiences get the benefits of different camera angles, being in four of the best seats in the house at the same time instead of just sitting in the one seat.
The emotional connection between performer and audience is still there, but perhaps the interval and post-concert audience socialising isn’t.
At the moment, most musicians are at home and exploring new ways to share their craft with the world. What advice would you give to artists who are trying to record and share their music from home, particularly those for whom it is a pretty new experience?
1. Get an external microphone.
2. If you can’t get an external microphone, use your phone. It will be okay.
3. If you get stressed about technology, just use your phone, it will really be okay.
4. Don’t forget that your audience is also freaking out about the world. Try to make them feel better.
5. Sound is more important than video. I’d prefer an audio recording that’s lovely than a video with compromised audio.
6. Split screen video performances with heaps of people in them were interesting for a few days, and are now getting a bit boring. If you’re going to make one, do it for a reason and don’t just do it for the gimmick.
Visit the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall website to keep up to date with its concert programs, which you can stream online.
Images supplied.
