Music Matters at Transparent

Karen and Jack Sumner have a very busy concert season which gives them ample opportunity to keep their ears in tune with the absolute sound of live unamplified music. At least once a week during the winter season, they attend live music performances at The Lyric Theater in Stuart, Florida or the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. They also attend world class performances at the Adrienne Arsht Center Carnival Music Hall in Miami.

Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio (and a talented recordist for Audiofon, Harmonia Mundi, and other labels) has captured many of the performances Jack and Karen attend as 4-channel recordings using Transparent Cable. The Sumner music and film studio (pictured below) includes a playback system for Peter's 4-channel digital master recordings.

Karen and Jack spend many off-season hours listening to these recordings, which come as close as possible to recreating the dynamics and spaciousness of the original music event. The selections recorded with Transparent and listened to through Transparent not only provide hours of enjoyment, but they are key tools to developing new Transparent products that transfer audio signals that are true to the live musical event.

The programs pictured are just a sampling of several months of performances Jack and Karen attended this year:

Palm Beach Opera
Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro
Puccini - La Boheme
Vocal Competition Winners Concert

Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
Rachmaninoff - Piano Conerto No. 2
Sibelius - Symphony No.2

State Symphony Orchestra of Russia
Tchaikovsky - The Snow Maiden
Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No.3
Rachmaninoff - Symphony No. 2

National Philharmonic of Russia
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D
Stravinsky - The Fairy's Kiss: Divertimento
Tchaikovsky - Sleeping Beauty Suite

Miami City Ballet
Bizet - Symphony in C

Atlantic Classical Orchestra
Tchaikovsky - Variations on a Rococo Theme
Saint-Saens - Symphony No. 2

Lyric Theater Concert Series
Maria Guleghina - Songs and Arias by Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Puccini
Garrick Ohlsson - Sonatas and Preludes by Prokofiev, Liszt, and Scriabin
Joshua Bell - Sonatas from Janacek, Brahms, Ysaye, and Franck

A Midnight Showing of Star Trek on IMAX

Amy and her sister, Christina, arrived 20 minutes early for the midnight show of Star Trek at the new IMAX theatre in Saco, Maine. That's right! Maine has an IMAX now! Upon arrival an usher said: "You'll have a hard time finding two seats together." We did find places among the approximately 350 people that the IMAX can seat. The digital picture was impressive, a little too impressive being we nearly had to sit in the front row! IMAX uses film larger than the standard 35 millimeters to allow for larger screens and increased resolution.

A new, dual digital projection system that debuted last year was used last night on a 70 feet wide by 40 feet tall reflective silver screen and the laser-aligned sound system is rated at 12,000 watts of power. Amy's favorite part of the movie was the character development; with so little screen time for a large cast, J.J. Abrams still delivered a fast-paced, funny, entertaining ride.
Later, my sister Chris shared this link for movie release dates I found helpful if you're a movie buff: http://www.firstshowing.net/releaseschedule2009/

For more information about Transparent, visit our website: http://www.transparentcable.com/

Weber/Elgar/Brahms on May 5th

Most of us attended the Portland Symphony Orchestra's performance on May 5th. Here was the scheduled program:

WEBER Jubel Overture
ELGAR Cello Concerto in E minor
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C minor

Demos Dadiotes liked the last symphony by Brahms the most; he described how he liked how it built up to the finale. His wife, Jen Dadiotes, as well as Sabrina Schultz, Amy Farwell, Josh Clark and his wife, Portia Clark were all in attendance. Amy liked the Elgar piece for it's variety but wanted more from the celloist, Zuill Bailey's lower range; most agreed with this critique.