H4 SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2006 WWW.KANSASCITY.COMTHE KANSAS CITY STAR. T W O S T A G E S • O N E R E PT w i c e t h e p o s s i b i l i t i e s !

NOW THRU OCT 15

SPENCER THEATRE • 4949 Cherr y Street, Kansas Cit y, MO KC REP IS THE PROFESSIONAL THEATRE IN RESIDENCE AT UMKC.

withBRIAN ANTHONY

WILSONAs seen on HBO’s THE WIRE

8 1 6 . 2 3 5 . 2 7 0 0 • w w w . k c r e p . o r g

Partial support provided by

kc rep is the professional theatre in residence at umkc.

T W O S T A G E S • O N E R E PT w i c e t h e s s i b i l i t i e s !

SPENCER THEATRE •4949 Cherry, KCMO

MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYMAKING

104

SCROOGE SAVER SALE! ~ 4 DAYS ONLY!INTERNET SALE: OCT 14-17 PHONE SALE: OCT 16-17Order your ticket online or by phone Oct 14 through 17 and receivean additional 25% off the already-discounted Scrooge Saver dates (November 18 thru 30)! Visit www.kcrep.org or call 816.235.2700.PLEASE USE THE CODE WORD “HOLIDAY” when you place your order!

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ecember 24, 2006

Call 913-469-4445or visit www.jccc.edu/CarlsenCenter Buy online:

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From Israel

Deca DanceBatsheva Dance Company8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 21

(Q&A with the&A with the aartists atists aftefter ther the SSaturturdaday pey perfrformaormancence)

2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22

A thrilling a selection of artistic director Ohad Naharin’s best work.

Taking modern dance to the cutting edge, with extraordinary dancers doing stunningmovement set to thrilling music –classical to rock.

In partnership with the Jewish Community Center and supported in part by Jewish CommunityFoundation Funds: Norman Glazer & Jean Burstein Glazer Fund for Jewish Cultural Arts, Helen andSam Kaplan Memorial Fund, and Earl J. & Leona K. Tranin Special Fund.

The EnglishConcert withAndrew Manze Nov. 4

Ed McMahonNov. 10-11

Upcoming Carlsen Center events:

816. 531. PLAY(7529)

www.unicorntheatre.org

giant stars. titan egos.

high-voltage humor.

by Austin Pendleton

2006-2007 SEASON

Reveal. React. Reflect.Tickets available through central ticket office on our website.

OCT20-NOV12

•3828 Main Street

ONLY 2 WEEKS LEFT!

In 20 years of business inKansas City, Omni Models Inc.has become famous for its in-credibly realistic-looking mini-atures.

Its architectural models areas fascinating as any dollhouse,lit from within and detailedwith tiny windows, trees andcars. The company’s subjectshave included everything froma Saudi soccer stadium to theSprint Center Arena in down-town Kansas City.

But the structure it is cur-rently building in a CrossroadsArt District firehouse is likenothing Omni has done before:a one-tenth scale interiormodel of the orchestra hall ofthe new Kauffman Center forthe Performing Arts.

Made entirely of birch that ismeasured and cut by complexcomputer programs, the 20-foot-high model will eventuallybe used by Kauffman Centeracoustician Yasuhisa Toyota tofine-tune the acoustics beforethe interior design details arefinalized.

The pioneering use of thesemodels has made Toyota’scompany, Nagata Acoustics ofJapan, famous for nearly per-fect acoustics — from SuntoryHall in Japan, hailed as one ofthe greatest acoustic successesin history when it opened in1986, to Walt Disney Hall inLos Angeles, which has trans-formed not just the sound butalso the reputation of the LosAngeles Philharmonic.

The goal of the models,which can cost tens of thou-sands of dollars to build, is tofind “detrimental echoes” andto eliminate them, Toyota said.

“Computer models cannotsay anything about echoes.

Hearing is everything.” Eliminating echoes is one of

the elements that creates a nat-ural decay of a sound.

“There must be nothing tointerrupt the decay,” Toyotasaid.

Toward that end, acousti-cians have developed an almostunbelievable science to testhow sound bounces around aconcert hall. First, they build anabsolutely airtight chamber in-side the model, into which theypump nitrogen to remove the15 percent oxygen found natu-rally in the air. Oxygen slowssounds, thus interfering withthe sounds that are to be broad-cast inside the chamber.

Then they install between 20and 30 tiny microphones inplaces where the audiencewould be sitting. Finally theyproject sounds from the stagearea, where the orchestra willsit.

But not just any sounds.Since this model is one-tenththe size of the future concerthall, the sounds must have one-tenth the wavelength of a

sound we want to hear. Thatmeans the sounds projectedinto the model are extremelyhigh-pitched and have to beelectronically slowed so thatthe human ear can hear them.

From there, movable surfacesinside the hall are adjusted toenhance or delete unwantedechoes that are picked up bythe microphones.

Don’t feel bad if you find it alla bit baffling. Toyota said ittook scientists decades to de-velop these techniques, begin-ning in the 1960s in Germany.

The point is that it works. Sofar Nagata Acoustics has yet tobuild an acoustic dud, andmost of its buildings have beenacclaimed as pinnacles of theacoustic art.

“If the Disney hall is any indi-cation of what they’re capableof, we have a lot to look for-ward to,” said Kansas City Sym-phony executive director FrankByrne at the time Toyota wasappointed to the project.

Indeed critics and audienceshave raved about Disney asthey have about few halls

opened in the last 20 years. Themost rhapsodic was not a mu-sic critic but Herbert Mus-champ, the architecture criticfor the New York Times:

“Mozart’s 32nd Symphonynearly brought on an attack ofStendhal’s syndrome, the noto-riously romantic state of panicinduced by aesthetic ecstasy.Audience, music, architecturewere infused by a sensation ofunity so profound that timestopped.”

It’s hard to overlook howsimilar in shape the KauffmanCenter symphony hall is to Dis-ney’s elongated bowl shape.

And in light of Toyota’s dec-laration that his firm gets betterwith each new hall because“we learn from what went be-fore,” there is reason to believethat Kansas City might be instore for an acoustic design asgood as any in the world.

What on earth will we dowith such a thing? To reach Paul Horsley, classicalmusic critic and dance writer,call (816) 234-4764 or writee-mail to [email protected].

Better music through science

By PAUL HORSLEYThe Kansas City Star

ALLISON LONG | KANSAS CITY STAR

Richard Dautremont, of Omni Models Inc., sands wood in front of a scale model of theKauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The model will be used for acoustic testing.

Local model-buildingfirm helps KauffmanCenter acousticianfine-tune hall’s acoustics.

CLASSICAL MUSIC + DANCE