USA - While the COVID pandemic compelled performing arts companies to stretch their horizons to reach audiences, Michigan Opera Theatre went further than many during the period, presenting programmes in the Detroit Opera House parking garage, among other non-traditional venues for opera.
Then, for one weekend in September, Blue, a contemporary American opera by Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson, was staged at the city's open-air Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre, a mostly pop-music venue where recent shows included performances by Chaka Khan, Machine Gun Kelly, Erykah Badu, and UB40.
Awarded Best New Opera of 2020 by the Music Critics Association of North America, Blue is about a young Black couple raising a son in modern-day Harlem and their struggles with p

World - To support first-time and indie filmmakers through the height of the pandemic, DPA Microphones partnered with Rycote on a Pay-it-Forward giveaway in late 2020 from which three lucky winners acquired a full cinema mics kit from the brands.
The contest’s prizes included DPA’s 4097 Micro Shotgun, 4017 Shotgun and 6060 Core Subminiature microphones - along with virtual mentoring sessions, an array of Rycote accessories and other equipment loaners. The recipients, Lijie Cheng of Singapore, Jacob Deming of the United States and Sergey Martynyuk of Austria, have been hard at

UK - The Wilberforce Monument, a statue dedicated to 18th / 19th century politician, philanthropist and anti-slavery campaigner, William Wilberforce, which stands on a 31m high Doric column in the grounds of Hull College in the UK, has recently been re-lit using Anolis ArcPar 150 Zoom LED fixtures.
Graham Roberts of event technical production company HPSS designed the new lighting scheme which is part of a city-wide urban regeneration initiative driven by Hull Council that includes illuminating key city centre buildings and historical landmarks.
The Monument – which is Gr

USA - To provide Barrington Stage Company’s (BSC) production of A Crossing: A Dance Musical with versatile lighting that elevated the show’s lively music and energetic choreography, lighting designer Jason Lyons selected a range of Martin Professional lighting solutions, provided in part by Christie Lites.
Founded in 1995, BSC is a non-profit theatre company that is dedicated to developing original and compelling works by diverse voices, such as the Tony Award-winning The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee among many other productions. A Crossing: A Dance

Austria - Platinum recording stars Christopher Seiler and Bernhard Speer tell stories of everyday life, offering philosophical observations of situations that everyone has experienced at one time or another.
Helping to turn the pages of these musical tales with supportive visuals is the duo’s lighting designer Niklas Fuchs who began lighting Seiler und Speer, using a ChamSys MagicQ MQ100 Pro, in 2015 when they released their inaugural album. His first show with them was at a small (750-capacity) club in the Alpine resort region of Tyrol, a far cry from their more recent appeara

Latest Issue. . .