News and Features

The Mikhailovsky Theatre is a magnificent opera and ballet house in the heart of St Petersburg, first opened in 1833. The theatre’s programme is primarily a repertoire of opera and ballet by the resident companies but the theatre also stages concerts by the resident Mikhailovsky Orchestra and by visiting orchestras. As often happens in opera…

Adrian James Acoustics has significantly expanded over the last few years, and IT investment remains a vital part of that expansion. For many years we used an in-house spreadsheet system for timesheets and project tracking, but this had no way of managing resourcing or future planning. It also required frequent manual intervention to keep it…

Our Principal Acoustics & Theatre Consultant Ian Rees has worked on numerous projects, but the historic Dragon Hall, Norwich is particularly exciting.  This merchant’s hall dates from 1430 and is part of the “Norwich Twelve” – recognised as one of the city’s most important medieval buildings. Now a Writers’ Centre is being established at the…

Adrian was delighted to be invited to the SEN Legal Annual Conference at the Tower of London Conference Centre, previously the New Armouries*.  In between the many excellent presentations and discussions, this gave him the opportunity to re-visit the venue for which he was the acoustics consultant when it was converted in the Nineties.  He…

We were delighted to hear that the National Youth Choir of Great Britain made good use of the new music school at Greshams, where they were resident for their Spring 2018 course.  Several AJA staff turned up for their final concert in the rather less acoustically distinguished St Andrew’s Hall in Norwich, with occasional accompaniment…

Fletton Quays is part of a £120 million development in the heart of Peterborough.  This ambitious council-backed venture was launched in 2017 as the initial project for the Peterborough Investment Partnership.  The goal is to regenerate an area adjacent to the River Nene, creating an attractive space featuring apartments and restaurants, a hotel, a dedicated…

We are sometimes asked to provide courses for companies which do not employ qualified acousticians.   Adrian James explains why we don’t do this.

Pipers Corner School hosted a gala performance of its inaugural production ‘We Will Rock You’ to celebrate the opening of the new theatre.  The gala on Saturday 26 November ended a hugely successful four-night run of the production.  Michael Holden and Ian Rees dusted off their black tie garb to attend the event.

AJA were delighted to win the 2016 ANC Award in the Architectural Acoustics: Education category for Boardman House.  This is our second ANC Award, having previously won the award for Architectural Acoustics at the first ANC Awards in 2013 for the UEL Stratford Library.  Project acoustician Ian Rees was presented with the award by physicist and…

AJA were commended in the Architectural Acoustics: Education category at the ANC Awards for our work on the UEA Bob Champion Building at the Norwich and Norfolk University Hospital.  Project acoustician Andy Oldridge was presented with the commendation by physicist and TV presenter Helen Czerski and Ecophon’s Shane Cryer at the ANC Conference in Birmingham in June.