Wikipedia

Gareth Owen (sound designer)

For other people with the same name, see Gareth Owen (disambiguation).

Gareth Owen is a twelve-time Tony & Olivier award-winning / nominated[1] Broadway and West End sound designer, described as one of "the only behind-the-scenes creatives whose star wattage spells success on [theatrical] productions".[2]

Gareth Owen
Born
Gareth John Owen

(1979-08-20) 20 August 1979 (age 45)
Sheffield, England
EducationUniversity of Plymouth (BA)
OccupationTheatrical Sound Designer
Years active1998–present
SpouseCarmen Bierens
Children3
Websitewww.garethowensound.com Edit this at Wikidata

Early life

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Gareth John Owen was born in Sheffield, England, a son of two teachers,[3] both of whom specialised in special needs education. At the age of nine the family moved to the Cayman Islands where Owen attended Cayman Islands Middle School. Upon returning to the UK the family moved to St. Ives in Cornwall where Owen attended both Mounts Bay School and Penwith Sixth Form College[4] before going to the University of Plymouth[5] in Plymouth, to study for a bachelor's degree in underwater science. While at university he worked in nightclubs[6] as a lighting and sound engineer, and as a boatman and beach lifeguard in St. Ives.[7]

Career

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Owen, described as "Broadway's wizard of sound"[8] began his career in live sound when the Penzance nightclub he was working at began presenting live bands which Owen was asked to mix. From here he secured work with Birmingham's SSE Audio Group[9] which lead to an early career in rock & roll, working at festivals such as Glastonbury, Reading, Party in the Park, and T4 on the Beach; and mixing acts such as Def Leppard, The Stereophonics, B B King, The Spice Girls and The Rolling Stones. In a 2024 Broadway Buzz interview he says "My very first job was hauling huge, heavy mains cables through knee-deep mud at festival fields and dragging delay speakers across two hundred meters of sludge and piss and old cigarette butts."[10]

Owens theatre career began when he was invited to mix the musical The Blues Brothers which was running at what is now the Trafalgar Studios in Londons west end. About this time, Owen is quoted as saying "I didn't have a lot of money so I bought a tent and lived in the band's garden".[11] From here he was offered a job as sound designer for the UK tour of Stephen Schwartz' musical Godspell,[12] beginning a collaboration which would continue until the present day.[13] Owen went on to design a number of shows in a freelance capacity, before joining London's Orbital Sound as a full-time sound designer.[14] In late 2009, Owen left Orbital Sound and formed his own company, Gareth Owen Sound.[15]

Since 2010, Owen has since worked with composers and musicians including Alan Menken,[16] Andrew Lloyd Webber,[17] Stephen Schwartz,[18] Björn Ulvaeus,[19] Glen Ballard, Lin-Manuel Miranda,[20] Max Martin,[21] David Bryan,[22] George Stiles, Cyndi Lauper, Pete Townsend,[23] Alan Silvestri,[24] Alicia Keys,[25] David Foster, Tom Kitt,[26] Stephen Sondheim,[27] Giles Martin, Tom Fletcher, and Sir Elton John.[28] Owen has also created musicals based on the music of pop icons such as Michael Jackson, Donna Summer, and The Beatles;[29] and is a collaborator with top directors including Robert De Niro,[30] Christopher Ashley,[31] Jerry Zaks,[32] Des McAnuff,[33] Luke Sheppard,[34] Jerry Mitchell,[35] Laurence Connor,[36] Christopher Wheeldon,[37] Terry Johnson, Michael Grief, Emerald Fennell,[38] Scott Schwartz, Michael Arden[39] and Sir Trevor Nunn.[40] Discussing collaboration in musical theatre, Owen is quoted as saying, "I find that the key to making shows sound good is to collaborate with the people who know best what [the sound] is supposed to be. It would be not just arrogant, but shortsighted and stupid of me to not become best friends with Alicia Keys and Adam Blackstone because let's think: who knows what Alicia Keys music is supposed to sound like...? Alicia Keys."[10]

Discussing acoustic volume of shows in a 2024 LSI Magazine interview, entitled "Making Broadway Rock", Owen, captioned as "Broadway's King of Pop" says "[in the theatre], when people say they want things loud, they don't mean Bon Jovi in Wembley Stadium loud."[41] He follows up on this in another article in FOH Magazine saying "In my experience when people talk about things being loud, they don’t necessarily mean it’s too loud. They mean that certain frequencies are aggressive and painful. In my experience, you can actually make things quite loud if you keep control of the sound, if it rises in volume in a relatively uniform, relatively linear manner. If all the frequencies rise together, it doesn’t become screechy or aggressive or punchy.”[42]

Owen's creative ethos has been discussed at length in multiple interviews, however the most succinct summation of his design philosophy reads “The traditional music theatre sound for a long time was about pretending that sound didn’t exist. It was all about microphones hidden in the hair, the sound of the orchestra coming out of the orchestra pit and voices coming from the people onstage. A ‘good’ sound design was considered to be one you wouldn’t know was there. Today, people go to the movies, hear an orchestra swell around them and they feel it. They put in their AirPods and hear amazing sound, get in their car and hear 29 speakers, or spend $600 at Target on an amazing surround system for their front room—and yet we still go to a theatre and pretend like sound doesn’t exist! I realised, ‘No, the world’s moved on. I’m going to stop apologising for sound.’ I made a conscious decision to take it in a completely different direction, which is a cinematic sound design - so I don’t really do shows that sound like traditional Broadway shows; that’s not really my thing.” [43]

With regard to immersive audio, Owen says, "It’s not a new concept, but it is a new buzzword. We are theatre people, and we’ve been doing what I call immersive audio for decades: putting people in the middle of the sound; and finding ways of localising sound sources from the audience’s perspective. That is theatre sound design..."[44]


Broadway musical theatre

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Sound designer Gareth Owen and director Robert De Niro backstage at Bronx Tale on Broadway.

Owen has worked as sound designer on the following Broadway productions[45] in New York City:

West End musical theatre

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Musical supervisor Dominick Amendum, Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz and sound designer Gareth Owen at the orchestra rehearsal of DreamWorks Prince of Egypt in 2021.

Owen has worked as sound designer on the following West End musical productions[48] in London:

 
Sixteen-time Grammy winning artiste Alicia Keys with Broadway sound designer Gareth Owen at the first preview of Key's Hell's Kitchen on Broadway.

International and regional musical theatre

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Gareth Owen and wife Carmen Bierens at the 2022 Tony Awards in New York.

Owen has worked as sound designer on the following productions around the world:

West End straight plays

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Sound designer Gareth Owen and comedian Lee Evans during Barking in Essex rehearsals in London in 2013.

Owen has worked as sound designer on the following West End straight plays in London, although the timeline suggests he is no longer active in this particular discipline:

Technical achievements

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MJ: The Musical mixing console at the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway.

Owen is credited with a long list of technical achievements and industry firsts.

Despite being quoted as saying that immersive audio "is not a new concept, but it is a new buzzword",[44] Owen is considered to be a pioneer in the field of immersive theatre sound. Owen was the first person to use the object based wave field synthesis immersive audio in both Londons West End[50] and on New Yorks Broadway,[51] for the musicals Come from Away and Diana, respectively. He created the world's first sound design to incorporate object based mixing in to a rotating auditorium[52] for Andrew Lloyd Webbers Cinderella musical at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London; and what was, at the time, the largest SoundScape installation in the world[53] for arena musical Starlight Express. Owen is also credited as the first person to integrate wireless tracking of performers in to an object based sound system on Broadway,[54] this time for MJ the Musical. Indeed, he and his team are credited with creating one of the industry standard control applications for live immersive audio,[55] d&b's EnSnap,[56] used on multiple shows and productions around the world.[57]

 
& Juliet mixing console at the Stephen Sondheim Theater on Broadway.

Owen's use and development of cutting-edge technologies is not limited to immersive audio. He is believed to have designed the show with the largest number of radio mics ever used on a west end musical,[58] 42nd Street at Londons Drury Lane. He was the first person to use the d&b KSL line array system[59] on both a Broadway show and on a west end musical, in both cases for Back to the Future the musical. He was the first person to use the d&b XSL line array system on a Broadway show, this time for & Juliet at the Sondheim theater. Owen was the first person to use a DiGiCo mixing console in theatre,[60] the now defunct D5, for the UK Tour of the Cliff Richard musical Summer Holiday.[61] He is credited as being the first to use both the Avid Venue mixing console[62] and the Avid S6L mixing console in theatre, for the shows Annie Get Your Gun and Broadways Come From Away respectively. Owen was one of the early adopters of computer game audio engines to create dynamic sound effects in theatre, notably on Broadway's Back to the Future musical.[63]

Business ventures

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The Fourier Audio transform.engine at the NAMM trade show in Los Angeles.

Owen is co-founder and CCO of audio hardware manufacturer Fourier Audio,[64] where he is "working to redefine the future of pro audio".[65] In 2023, he and his co-founders Henry Harrod and Peter Bridgman sold Fourier Audio to live mixing desk manufacturer DiGiCo for an undisclosed multi-million pound sum.[66] From this springboard they went on to release the transform.engine, a revolutionary VST plugin host, designed exclusively for the live environment,[67] which won the PLASA Innovation Award.[68]

Owen is also a co-founder of the software house Show Control Ltd, a company specialising in the coding and development of dedicated theatrical show control systems.[69] There is little information available regarding this endeavour beyond a list of the developed software on Owen's website.[70]

Other endeavours

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Honorary Doctorate at Salford University

In 2009, Owen joined a steering committee that eventually formed the Association of Sound Designers[71] where he served as a committee member for the maximum term of five years, from 2012 to 2018.[72]

In 2022, Owen was presented with an Honorary Doctorate[73] from the University of Salford.[74]

Selected awards

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Owen collects the Olivier Award for Best Sound Design at the 2019 Olivier Awards
Year Nominated work Category Result Notes
2024 Hell's Kitchen Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Nominated
2024 Fourier transform.engine Parnelli Award Pending
2024 Fourier transform.engine PLASA Innovation Award Won
2024 The Who's Tommy Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2024 Back to the Future Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2023 The Who's Tommy Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Won
2023 & Juliet Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Nominated
2023 & Juliet BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Won
2022 MJ: The Musical Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Won
2022 MJ: The Musical Drama Desk Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Won
2022 Back to the Future Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2022 Back to the Future WhatsOnStage Award for Best Sound Design Won
2020 Come From Away BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design of the Decade Nominated
2020 Come From Away Green Room Award for Best Sound Design Won
2020 Come From Away WhatsOnStage Award for Best Sound Design Won
2020 & Juliet WhatsOnStage Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2019 Come From Away Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Won
2019 The Donna Summer Musical NAACP Theatre Award for Best Sound Larger Theatre Nominated
2018 Starlight Express (Bochum) Pro Sound Award for Best Immersive Design Won
2018 Carmen La Cubana BroadwayWorld Germany Award for Best Sound Design Won
2018 Bat Out of Hell The Musical AV Technology Award for Best Use of Audio Solutions[75] Won
2018 Come From Away BroadwayWorld Toronto Award for Best Original Sound Design Won
2018 Bat Out of Hell The Musical Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2018 Come From Away BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design Won
2018 Summer Craig Noel Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2017 Bat Out of Hell The Musical AV Technology Award for Best Sound Design Won
2017 Come From Away Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Sound Design Won
2017 Bat Out of Hell The Musical BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design Won
2017 Come From Away Dora Award for Best Sound Design Won
2017 Individual Recognition Pro Sound Award for Sound Engineer of the Year[76] Won
2017 Come From Away Helen Hayes Award for Best Sound Design Won
2016 A Bronx Tale BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design Won
2015 Memphis the Musical Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Won
2015 Memphis the Musical Pro Sound Award for Best Theatre Sound[77] Won
2015 Hunchback of Notre Dame BroadwayWorld Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2014 Merrily We Roll Along Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Won
2013 Top Hat Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2014 I Can't Sing! Pro Sound Award for Best Theatre Sound Won
2012 End of the Rainbow Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Nominated
2011 End of the Rainbow Olivier Award for Best Sound Design Nominated
2010 A Little Night Music Tony Award for Best Sound Design of a Musical Nominated

References

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  1. ^ Janssen, Sarah (13 December 2022). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2023. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-5107-7246-5.
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