Anjali Joshi hammer Dulcimer and Ira Seigel sound engineer

David Anderson 28/09/2022 339

Ira says;

At the end of January, the Seattle Symphony sponsored a show called “Celebrate Asia” in which the symphony played some world premiere pieces by Chinese composers. One of the featured artists was an Indian woman named Anjali Joshi playing a santoor. It’s a hammered dulcimer-type of instrument, delicate sound, not very loud, pictured below. It needed to be amplified quite a lot in order to get over the volume of the orchestra.  After failing with a variety of condenser mics on stands – which picked up more orchestra leakage than santoor – I remembered I had an Accusound mic still left in my bag (I was already using a pair on our 9’ Steinway). During a break in the rehearsal, I mounted the mic to the underside of the santoor, and we soundchecked it. Everyone – including the maestro and the creative director for the symphony – were amazed at the clarity and tonality of the instrument, and I was able to get enough attack and high-end to exactly create the blend of the instrument with the symphony that the composer wanted. When the piece was played with the symphony, the Accusound made it extremely easy to get enough volume without any danger of feedback, and everyone was quite pleased. Afterwards, the player asked me what kind of mic I had used on her instrument, and I told her “Accusound”.