Sound Associates Design Makes New York Philharmonic “Concerts in the Park” a Concert Hall Experience

New York, NY, June 24, 2008 – Sound Associates, Inc., provides the sound system for all the New York Philharmonic outdoor summer concerts again this year. The free concerts begin Tuesday, June 24 on the Great Lawn in Central Park, then travel to all five boroughs, East Islip, Long Island, and Holmdel, New Jersey, with a finale in Central Park on July 15.

“Our goal is to take the vastness of these large outdoor concerts and make the performance feel as intimate as possible for the audience, regardless of where they are seated,” said Domonic Sack, sound designer and Executive Vice President. www.soundassociates.com

The New York Philharmonic concerts will be conducted by Bramwell Tovey, Philharmonic Music Director Designate Alan Gilbert, and Associate Conductor Xian Zhang. This year’s concerts will feature performances by pianist Lang Lang, violinists Sheryl Staples and Michelle Kim. The first concert in Central Park will feature music by Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Sousa. All concerts are followed by fireworks, begin at 8 PM, and no tickets are required. www.NYPhil.org

“We’re essentially building an outdoor concert hall with the sound system. We retain an acoustic sound for as many rows as possible before the speaker system kicks in, and that acoustic feel continues throughout the entire park so those further back get the acoustic experience of those closer to the front,“ said Sack, who is also currently designing the sound for Broadway’s A Tale of Two Cities.

This technical achievement requires syncing the orchestra with forty foot delay towers, placed high enough so the audience can see beneath them, programmed with millisecond audio delays which increase as the sound gets farther from the stage. With the coordination of the towers the echo is eliminated. No matter where an audience member sits they’ll be able to hear a seamless live performance.

“The main requirement for all the concerts is that the audience be able to concentrate on the immediacy of the live performance, unaware of a sound system,” said Sack, himself a lyric tenor who will be celebrating his 20th year in the Met Extra Chorus performing in Götterdämmerung, part of the 2009 production of the Wagner Ring Cycle.


Sound Associates, Inc. also provided the sound system for the 2008 outdoor Metropolitan Opera Concert in Prospect Park, attracting the largest audience ever in the park’s history.

2008 New York Philharmonic “Concerts in the Parks” Schedule:
- Tuesday, June 24- Great Lawn in Central Park Manhattan;
- Tuesday, July 8 - Richmond County Bank Ballpark, Staten Island;
- Wednesday, July 9 - PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, New Jersey;
- Thursday, July 10 - Cunningham Park, Queens;
- Friday, July 11 - Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx;
- Saturday, July 12 - Heckscher State Park, East Islip, Long Island;
- Monday, July 14 - Prospect Park, Brooklyn;
- Tuesday, July 15 - Great Lawn in Central Park, Manhattan.

For over sixty years Sound Associates has been a leader in the world of theater and professional sound and video design. With production facilities in Yonkers, New York City and Atlanta, the Company has built sound systems for over 1000 Broadway shows, live events and concerts including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and civic installations, hearing rooms and houses of worship. In October of 2005 Sound Associates, Inc. received the HHS Secretary’s Highest Achievement Award for their decades-long commitment to making live theater more accessible to special needs audiences through innovative use of technology.

Current Broadway productions built by Sound Associates, Inc.:
Passing Strange; Hairspray; The Lion King; August: Osage County; Legally Blonde; Boeing Boeing; Thurgood; Macbeth; November; Xanadu; The Little Mermaid.

For interviews contact: John Carney 212-477-0472 mediajmpr@aol.com