Attendees included UD students, faculty, staff and retirees, area music teachers and middle and high school students. Representatives of the Philadelphia Orchestra's administration also attended to evaluate the effectiveness of the technology and the overall experience.
Originating from Philadelphia's Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and carried to UD via the high-performance network of Internet2, the orchestra, under the direction of Maestro Christoph Eschenbach, with Julia Fischer, violin, performed Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.
“This was the first time a digital video transport system (DVST) multicast had been used anywhere in the world for an orchestra performance,” Dick Sacher, an associate director in IT-User Services, said. “The concert was multicast to six live locations, including UD, University of Copenhagen, Montgomery County (Pa.) Community College, University of Porto (Portugal), Eastman School of Music (Rochester, N.Y.), and University of Pennsylvania.”
Sacher said that the orchestra's use of DVTS, which was developed and continues to be developed at Keio University, Japan, employed stereo audio and uncompressed video that resulted in very low transmission latencies or delays.
“Effectively, when the camera would focus on the violinist's fingering during very fast passages, the CD-quality sound was perceived to be in near-perfect synchronization,” Sacher said. “Those production elements made the UD audience feel that they were truly at the actual concert hall rather than at a remote site.”
Audience reaction was generally positive, Sacher said, and included comments like “very realistic” and “The camera-work made me feel like I was really there.”
“I think that it was a great success,” Sacher said. “We will continue to look for opportunities, either as remote sites or as contributors or collaborators.”
Greg Palmer, director of MAGPI, the tri-state regional network, said that by being one of the multicast locations UD was demonstrating that advances in network technology can serve the artistic as well as the research community.
“This is a perfect testimony to the flexibility of advanced networking in the region,” Palmer said. “My congratulations to the University of Delaware for its leadership role in both the research and artistic communities.”
Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Jon Cox