BCU Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
Exceptional experience for everyone using the space.
Objectives Delivery ResultsSeptember 2017 saw the launch of BCU’s new Birmingham Conservatoire, a state-of-the-art project that was several years in the making and took two years to construct. The world-class Conservatoire, which was granted a Royal status just two weeks after it opened, cost £57 million and features five public performance spaces, including the 500-seat concert hall, 150-seat recital hall, and a 100-seat organ studio. The building also boasts the UK’s first permanent conservatoire-based jazz space, which seats 80, and a flexible and versatile black-box studio called The Lab where students can experiment and innovate.
The project’s principal contractor, Galliford Try, faced the unenviable task of finding partners capable of delivering the extremely high specifications required by the Conservatoire team. Convinced by the extensive experience of Vanti, Galliford Try brought us on board to provide audio-visual and lighting services across the five performance spaces as well as their control rooms and technical suites.
The music technologists at the Conservatoire had an ambitious vision in mind for the new building – it was to be the first of its kind to offer both analogue and digital recording in every performance space. This added an extra layer of complexity to the project, as we needed to ensure that all the AV and lighting equipment and cabling didn’t have a negative impact on the acoustics of the rooms. The projectors in each space, for example, have been housed in custom-built cases so the hum they emit whilst operating doesn’t interfere with recording quality; using this housing prompted us to opt for laser projectors rather than the traditional lamp-based models which need more regular maintenance.
Because our approach focuses on the end user’s experience, the Conservatoire’s performance spaces were built with usability in mind, with each room featuring at least one intuitive touch-screen control panel. This allows students and lecturers to control lighting, audio, and video equipment, including top of the range GDS house lighting, ETC performance lighting, Vaddio cameras, and NEC projectors.
We were also pleased to be able to work with some industry-leading sound technology companies like Meyer Sound and SSL in order to deliver a state-of-the-art experience for the Conservatoire’s users. Our technical ability enabled us to understand the complex challenges we were faced with and develop solutions alongside music technicians from the Conservatoire and the other partners involved in the project.
The new Royal Birmingham Conservatoire provides an exceptional experience for everyone using the space, whether they’re music students, lecturers, technologists, or simply individuals wishing to enjoy the many spectacular events the venues will play host to.
Through Vanti’s work, the Conservatoire boasts performance spaces with specific acoustic tolerances that can produce incredible, consistent audio experiences. These performances can be mixed using advanced consoles and recorded in both analogue and digital as per requirements. This fusion of traditional and contemporary technologies makes the Conservatoire the first of its kind, allowing BCU to attract the very best musicians from around the globe.
Further cementing the Conservatoire’s credentials as a world-class institution is the venue’s ability to host and broadcast live performances. With multiple cameras in four out of the five performance spaces, concerts can easily be filmed in crisp HD; the Concert Hall also supports the use of outside broadcast units, enabling the Birmingham Conservatoire to host internationally-renowned artists and exciting events that can be transmitted around the world in real time.
September 2017 saw the launch of BCU’s new Birmingham Conservatoire, a state-of-the-art project that was several years in the making and took two years to construct. The world-class Conservatoire, which was granted a Royal status just two weeks after it opened, cost £57 million and features five public performance spaces, including the 500-seat concert hall, 150-seat recital hall, and a 100-seat organ studio.