Music Of Andrew Lloyd Webber - 2001
In September 2001 China was officially introduced to the works of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber with a gala concert staged at The Great Hall of the People in Tianneman Square (pictured), the governments national parliamentary assembly hall accommodating 10,000 seats and tour to Shanghai where it would play at the Shanghai Grand (pictured), one of the largest and best equipped theatres in the world.
Great Hall Of The People - Tiananmen Square
Shanghai Grand Theatre
The Really Useful Group, with producers Austin Shaw, Belinda Fedorow, Kerry Comerford and Tim McFarlane, announced that it would tour four of its leading performers with an Australian cast in a massive concert celebrating the works of Andrew Lloyd Webbers greatest productions over 20 Years. It would be directed by the acclaimed Jo-Anne Robinson.
It is also the meeting place of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China, which, since 1982, has occurred once every five years and the party's Central Committee which meets approximately once a year. This would become a pertinent problem as we’ll discuss later!
The Great Hall covers 171,801 square metres of floor space, it is 356 metres in length and 206.5 metres in width. The centre's highest point reaches 46.5 metres. Its more or less half a stadium in size
Each seat is in fact equipped with a microphone so that parliamentary members can speak as a part of the assembly.
The concert was headlined by Elaine Paige, Sandy Lam, Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang), Tony Vincent, and supported by some very successful and familiar Aussie faces you may recognise in the image below.
The song list and performers happen to still be in our archives and we’ve included them below. Musicals featured were The Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Cats, Sunset Boulevard, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Aspects of Love, Whistle Down the Wind, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Beautiful Game. It boasted an orchestra of 60 and comprised of a 140 minute performance with interval. Mic’s were 32 Schoeps and MKH80’s on basses. The orchestra was lead by Patrick Vacariello, David Young was on piano, Lindsay Partridge on keyboard, Gary Norman on Guitar, Dean Cooper in percussion, Lead Trumpet was Norm Harris and on Horn, Lyndon Garger.
See any familiar faces here?
At the base of this article you’ll find some YouTube links to performances from the show.
The show was mixed by Mark Benson and John Scandrett, on two Midas XL200’s (pictured) with Greg Blades mixing foldback on a Yamaha M3500 (also pictured) and Cam Herbert offering radio and backstage support for 47 mics, 25 channels of SK50’s with 1046’s, 3 x SK3072 hand radios and 25 x DPA4066 Headsets.
The system itself was Meyer Sound Msl-4’s, 6 per side, with two UPA-1P’s used as upfill. Four 650-P subs per side were used and 7 CQ-2’s formed the front fill. All were hired locally and stacked on scaffolding each side of the stage.
This venue however was unique – on the day of set up an emergency meeting of the Chinese National Assembly was called and bump-in was cancelled entirely, resulting in any work already done being stripped. Gear was bumped in to be bumped out and bumped in again that night. For the sound team that meant a 26 hour shift.
The fatigue, however, took it’s toll. In the next city, Shanghai, the orchestra was set up on an on stage riser and whilst positioning speakers John fell 2m from the orchestra platform, hitting his head and being taken to emergency for a CAT scan and 24hrs of obs. While recovering back at the hotel for one day before returning to work, famous Hong Kong personality and recording artist, Sandy Lam kindly organised her traditional Chinese medicinal practitioner to attend to him even gifting him a Chinese carved mail stamp as a gift for his efforts during the show. You’ll notice the black eye in several of the photographs. Here’s one with Kris Phillips (Fei Xiang) and one with Elaine Paige signing a poster for us! (picture also included here)
This unforeseen change in schedule also pressed the cast with rehearsals being pushed forward dramatically. The production however was a complete success, selling out and drawing critical acclaim; effectively introducing Andrew Lloyd Webber to China on a grand scale. The show itself was internationally broadcast and published in CD and DVD the next year.
Finally here are some photos of the team on the steps of the Great Hall after the show waiting for the bus and in Shanghai having a drink on the Bund after the show there.
