Niečo o histórii Streamboyz+

In 2007 Prof. Marian Lapšanský, General Director of the Slovak Philharmonic, visited the Lahti Symphonic Orchestra in Finnland where the project ClassicLive promoting live concert and theatrical performance recordings streamed online was introduced to him. He was offered assistance; and therefore, he addressed me and Marek with a request to suggest technical solution for online streaming of the Slovak Philharmonic concerts. As soon as we resolved technological issues together, we started looking for friends and acquaintances whom we regarded as suited for the job. Peter joined our team to enrich it with his IT skills as well as to provide a server located in the highest connectivity city area. Having completed the project, we introduced it to Prof. Lapšanský, who further presented it to the Slovak Minister of Culture. The Minister liked it very much, we were given a budget and got down to work. The project ClassicLive was quite an adrenaline challenge because it involved managing livestream which meant that all had to go well at the first attempt. At that time four of us pressed against one another in the production room with Peter supervising streams.

Our team was finally joined by Vašo who was still a student at the STU. Our production fitted a desk and shelf in the former SP sound production room. After a series of break-neck mountain-climbing stunts all across the Reduta attic, we hung the most precious piece of our sound equipment - the microphone Soundfield MKV - onto an attested place in the Concert Hall (which we were continuously fixing for about a week to general satisfaction), installed the first two robotic cameras as well as an encoder, and fun could begin. The sound was managed by the SP sound engineer Vašek with Peter, Vašo and me in charge of the cameras and editing. With reference to the music score Marek told us who is supposed to play and what part they are playing...

The very first concert recording was held on 22 February 2008. The Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Alexander Rahbari played Puccini’s Preludio Sinfonico, Op. 1, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 “Italian”, and after a break Tchaikovsky’s Italian Capriccio, Op. 45, and Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture. Visually speaking, we could not make wonders with only two cameras at hand, but we did our best. After some time, several cameras were added and new experience gained, which was reflected in the broadcast quality and stream viewer’s rate increase.

After two years of streaming we were forced to leave the Reduta building for the sake of its reconstruction. A self-made sideboard, placed in the room for accompanists on the ground floor of the Historic Building of the Slovak National Theatre, hosted our new production. I and Vašo did a little acrobatics here, so to say, because during theatre holiday we dismantled theatre boxes, determined spots for setting up cameras, installed signalling, control and feeding cables and hid them all from the view of visitor’s eye. During the theatre season the cameras and microphone Soundfield had to be installed on Wednesday nights after the theatre performance and removed after the Friday concerts. I have always been amazed that the devices have worked properly up to now despite all the things that they were exposed to during the two-year exile...

With the reconstruction still in progress, I was offered to enter a SP team to revise the eight- year-old project. And fortunately so, because eight years ago video recording could not have been thought of at all. We managed to incorporate HD cameras into technologies, set up optical signalling lines, change the previously designed devices for the more up-to-date ones, establish a connection spot for wireless trucks and literally beg for a microphone set for studio recordings. At the time being we record the concerts held in the Concert Hall of the Slovak Philharmonic in HD quality video resolution (1080i) and sound resolution 96kHz/24bit, the performances in the Small Hall of SP and Courtyard in SD video quality and sound 96/24.

The recent piece of news in the life of Streamboyz is the new design of our website which is Marek’s brainchild and creation. Nowadays you can stream the concerts on your tablets and smart phones, and I hope that you will make use of this chance. At last one may catch a glimpse of not only hard rock and rap but also Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 flowing from the headphones when on a bus.

In 2018, Vašek advised us of his retirement and so we started looking for a new team member for the Streamboyz. In May 2019, Marek managed to address his former student Andrej, to help our team. We gave him the opportunity to become a permanent member of the Streamboyz team at the Slovak Philharmonic. With great leadership and intense onboarding from mainly Vasek, he grew into his role. And he did very well! Andrej is a perfect fit for the Streamboyz team. We are very happy to announce that he is since September 1, 2019 a full-time member of our team. Well, dear Andrej, thank you very much for your support, and we are looking forward to create many great streams together with you!

I’m sending you all kind regards and wish you a lot of beautiful musical experiences while streaming the concerts online!

Stano

PS. From the 2022/2023 season Jakub Smolák, a student of the Faculty of Film and Television of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, is working with us, and from the 2023/2024 season Ján Burgr is our colleague, both of them taking care of sound, lighting, discussions recording and announcements.