DPA delivers summer spectacle at Leeds Castle

Organised by Heritage Events, Leeds Castle recently hosted a night of live classical music for over 10,000 people, with DPA Microphones playing a key role in delivering the sound.

Located in Kent, UK, the Castle provided an idyllic backdrop to the concert, which featured the Royal Philharmonic orchestra conducted by John Rigby, the Central Band of the Royal Air Force and the Military Wives Choir. There were also solo performances from tenor James Edwards and international soprano Claire Rutter.

Sound, lighting and PA specialists SRD Group supplied all of the equipment for the concert, including a large complement of DPA microphones, which it leased from sound engineer Ian Barfoot.

“DPA microphones were ideal for this project because they always deliver fantastic audio quality and are very rugged, which means you can put them through the mill without having to worry about them,” Barfoot explained. “The weather for the concert wasn’t great and it did rain very heavily all day, but the damp conditions didn’t affect the microphones at all. Luckily it stopped raining during the evening, which improved the mood of the audience who had turned up armed with big umbrellas expecting to get soaked.”

In addition to delivering orchestral stems to the monitor and FOH engineers, Barfoot also provided a selection of over 60 DPA microphones to capture the orchestras and soloists.

“One of the musicians was playing a very fine Stradivarius, which we miced with a DPA 4060 miniature microphone,” he commented. “We also used DPA d:vote 4099 instrument microphones to capture the fanfare trumpeters from the RAF Band, who delivered a resonant finale to the evening.”

During the evening there were displays from classic World War II aircraft, while the concert climaxed with a spectacular fireworks display. Despite the weather, Stuart Roberts, managing director of SRD Group, said the event was a resounding success.

“This is the third year running that we have been involved with the summer concert Heritage Events stages at Leeds Castle and we always use Ian’s stock of DPA microphones for the orchestras. The weather did create more work in terms of getting equipment on and off the site, but the sound quality on the night was as stunning as ever and it was a really wonderful evening for everyone who attended.”

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