http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011 ... =mh_frhdl1
As recent (or soon-to-be) graduates of the Clive Davis School for Recorded Music at NYU, Knobler and a handful of friends started a recording studio, Mason Jar Music. And they even converted a Brooklyn basement. But the space didn't have the majesty they wanted. So they started to look for spaces that did ? places where they could bring in orchestras and bands and get the soaring sound of an epic space.
Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center were out. But they stumbled upon an old church in downtown Manhattan that would let them record in the middle of the night. Then they got a line on an abandoned hotel where they could set up their mobile recording equipment for an afternoon.
And co-founder of Mason Jar Music Jon Seale says they realized these spaces weren't just cheap. They sounded amazing.
"We realized how important the environment is to the music," Seale says. "The spaces we're in affect the music we play, whether it's a quiet recording studio or a great hall or an empty building."
An idea was hatched: a recording series that matched new music to forgotten spaces. But the Mason Jar Music crew would find that empty buildings bring their own challenges.
So, where would you go sneaking in at night? What spaces/buildings?
Mine that came to mind while listening to the piece (will add more later) -
1) a basement of a home I walked through once, 10 years ago. I thirty-foot chamber that was an effort of a previous owner to have some defined space in what was an unusual foundational footing - probably to an earlier home gone now, replaced with a simple ranch home.
2) Cave of the Winds in Colorado, US. http://caveofthewinds.com/
When i was a kid we would visit so many caves and I remember the tour guides' voices swirling though the passages.
