In support of the U.K. bands and artists that were set to perform at the recently cancelled South by Southwest (SXSW) conference, Production Park’s The Mill Studio in London will play host to a live-streamed showcase on Wednesday March 18.
The sessions are supported by the British Music Embassy, with the line-up curated by DIY Magazine, Jazz re:freshed Outernational and cSquaredLDN.
Bands and artists performing across the sessions include Theon Cross, King Nun, ELOÏSE mp3, Superbird and Noya Rao. The showcase will feature 30 minute sets from each act to be supported by MQA.
“We’d like to thank all of the British Music Embassy partners for organising the SXSW sessions from London. MQA is committed to enabling artists to provide the best audio to their fans in all listening environments: we launched our ‘audio+video’ solution last year and are very pleased to provide this support during these challenging times,” says Mike Jbara, CEO, MQA.
“When high quality video is matched with MQA audio, our partners believe the experience is the next best thing to being there.”
Using scientific research into how people hear, the MQA team has created a technology that captures the sound of the original studio performance and they are kindly supporting this opportunity to bring fans closer to the artists in such an unprecedented time. Audio will be captured in 24 bit/96kHz and the MQA mix fed to a video stream to create an immersive experience we are extremely excited to share with you. The BME sessions will be live-streamed during the day from 14:40 hours U.K. time (approximately 9:40 EST) onwards via What Hi-Fi?’s YouTube channel; additionally, following the live-stream, HD videos of artist performances with MQA audio will be available for playback at www.mqa.co.uk/mqa-live.
Following the official announcement on 6 March that the City of Austin had cancelled SXSW 2020, the music industry has banded together to find alternative platforms for those musicians who have been affected to get in front of an audience.
In solidarity with the organisers of SXSW, the British Music Embassy has decided to hold the London studio sessions behind closed doors, utilising the live-stream to broadcast the performances to the wider music community, bringing some incredibly exciting new talent to the world stage.
More MQA news: Q&A: Meridian Audio’s Barry Sheldrick Discusses Immersive Audio, MQA, More
