Rudamina Art School

The first newly built art school in independent Lithuania

A new art school is opened in Rudamina. Although the art school has historically been here since 2003, this year the institution moved to new premises. The abandoned old building has been completely reconstructed, and after three years of construction, it is now home to one of the most modern art schools in Lithuania.

The Rudamina Art School offers talented children the opportunity to study music and art. The reconstructed building houses concert and dance halls, a sound recording studio, rooms for art and music classes, changing and rehearsal rooms. The new premises are much more spacious, which has allowed for a wider range of services and significantly improved learning conditions.

The music department offers piano, violin, guitar, cello, classes, as well as ensemble, accordion orchestra, choir and vocal ensemble. The school’s main attraction now is the Main Hall and the new grand piano on stage.

The biggest challenge: acoustics of the hall

The new school hall was designed by Scenos Techninis Servisas (StS). The hall is equipped with new sound, lighting and video systems, stage machinery, stage curtains. The acoustics have also been improved.

“The biggest challenge in setting up this hall was to get the acoustics right. A concert hall has to meet the requirements of natural acoustics, live music and different musical instruments have to sound beautifully”, says Julius Gružinskas, Head of Design department at StS. He says that acoustic simulations were used to design the acoustics of the hall. This allowed the optimum combination of sound-absorbing and sound-reflecting acoustic elements to be selected.

The most important requirements for good acoustics in this type of venue are control of reverberation time, a balance between absorbing and reflecting surfaces, and the ability to adapt the sound system to the specific event. The acoustic simulation of the hall resulted in an average reverberation time of 2.33 seconds. In order to improve the acoustics of the venue, the complex geometry of the venue and the large volume of the venue made it necessary to cover 25% of the surface, so 251 JOCAVI acoustic panels were installed on the ceiling and the walls. After the application of the acoustic improvement technological measures, the calculated (simulated) mean reverberation time (RT) was 1.18 sec.

“For the acoustic improvement project, we consulted our partner JOCAVI. They have been manufacturing acoustic panels for 30 years and are true experts in the field. In addition to modern modelling technology, we also used the expertise of our partners. This has led to excellent results”, said Julius Gružinskas.

Beautiful scenography and impeccable sound

In the new concert hall StS specialists installed state-of-the-art lighting, sound and video equipment.

Chauvet Professional lighting fixtures are used to create a beautiful concert scenography: 9 pcs. Chauvet Lighting’s R1X Spot, 12 pcs. Rogue R2X Wash, 4 pcs. Rogue R2X Wash VW, and 8 pcs. COLORband Pix M ILS floodlights. The lighting system is controlled by a ChamSys light controller.

The sound system used for this venue is L-ACOUSTICS. The system consists of A15i Wide and Focus loudspeakers, KS21i subwoofers and amplifiers. There are also 8 QSC universal stage monitors for live concerts.

A set of microphones was selected to meet the needs of the music school: wireless microphones, handheld microphones, microphone stands and microphones for the choir’s on-stage sound.

The video system consists of a video projector and a projection screen mounted at the back of the stage.

The screen can be conveniently unfolded and collapsed at the touch of a button. The stage curtain is also controlled automatically. All this facilitates the technical servicing of events.