I went to a wonderful concert last night at the Northrop Auditorium at the University of Minnesota.
This hall houses one of the
finest Orchestral organs in the world. It was built by the famed Aeolian Skinner company between 1932 and 1936. These organs are massive and complex, and a lot have been destroyed after falling into disrepair. This one came on hard times, but was lovingly restored starting in 2016. As was not uncommon at this time it was built, many of these orchestral organs are totally enclosed and this organ is, so no pipes are visible. The sound emanates from openings above the stage.
Last night Anna Lapwood gave a thrilling recital on the instrument. Anna Lapwood is 28 years old, and was appointed master of music and the choristers at Pembroke College Cambridge six years ago. She was by far the youngest individual to ever garner such a prestigious appointment. She has popularized the organ through social media and has millions of followers world wide. She is one of the organists to the Royal Albert Hall. She has multiple responsibilities at Cambridge including teaching, training and conducting the chapel choir. In addition she is performer, arranger, transcriber and performs world wide. She also is BBC commentator especially during the Proms season. She has millions of followers world wide on social media.
So, it was no surprise to me that Northrop auditorium was packed with a sell out crowd last night. As is common for Lapwood organ events she included a number of her transcriptions of music from the movies.
Anyhow her concert is available on line until April 7.
It will cost you $10.00 to get your access code.
I have listed to this stream at full concert volume, and that is loud at times! The sound is really, really good. On my rig here, it actually sounded just like being in Northrup. My internal organs vibrated to the massive 32' pipes just like they did last night. Whoever made the recording did a superb job.
The engineers have followed the new streaming audio protocols which are gradually being enforced. This means that the average level will be lower than what you are used to. This is all to allow program to have much greater dynamic range, and the dynamic range of this recording is colossal. So my volume level was set at -1 db to reproduce at the level I heard in the hall. Heretofore I have set levels most often at -9 to -13 db. But it is of note most of my streams are reducing loudness to the new -18 LUFS. I will be posting about all these changes coming to the audio of audio and AV streams. There are changes afoot and I will be explaining why.
This experience is worth much, much more than the $10.00 for your digital ticket. I can tell you that you will find out how good your subs are from this stream!
Northrup was her first concert of her current US concert tour. She announced that her mother phoned in the interval to say she was listening to the live stream in England!
