![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pro.harman.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Bud-Headshot.jpeg\")
With a penchant for the theatrical, Bud acted and did stage lighting while attending college at UC Santa Barbara. He then segued into building theater sets in Santa Fe and Southern California before hitting his stride with concert lighting.<\/p>\nFrom the Egyptian pyramids to Kremlin Hall, lighting design has led Bud Horowitz to the far reaches of our planet. Out of the 70-plus countries he\u2019s visited, 40 have been while serving as lighting designer for world-renowned instrumentalist Yanni, who Bud has toured with for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n
With a penchant for the theatrical, Bud acted and did stage lighting while attending college at UC Santa Barbara. He then segued into building theater sets in Santa Fe and Southern California before hitting his stride with concert lighting.<\/p>\n
In addition to Yanni, through the years, he has designed lighting for artists ranging from Devo and the Brian Setzer Orchestra to Andy Gibb, Toni Tennille, Stevie Wonder and Natalie Cole. He has also toured as a lighting director for numerous artists, including Styx and Bette Midler. However, Yanni\u2019s uplifting global style, elaborate production approach and closely knit family of musicians and crew have been particularly compelling for Bud.<\/p>\n
As he was recently completing preparations for a U.S. and Central American tour, we had an opportunity to spend an afternoon discussing his colorful career and thoughts about lighting.<\/p>\n
[MM] What makes the role of a concert lighting designer unique? [Bud] Lighting is magical\u2014and particularly, lighting musical performances. People ask, \u201cHow do you really know what light you need to have where?\u201d Sometimes the hardest thing is figuring out what that song wants to look like. Sometimes, I just know. And sometimes, I\u2019ll need to sit there with a lighting rig and a board and play the song over and over until I find the hook. Almost always, a song will have a hook\u2014a recurring lighting movement that\u2019s perfect for it.<\/p>\n I can teach someone how to sit at a console, how to point a light this way or that, how to change a color, but not to see what a song translates to in lights.<\/p>\n Usually, I see the lighting in my head before I start working with it, and I\u2019ve had artists ask me how I know what color to make a song. Yanni once said to me, \u201cThis new song of ours, you have the perfect color for it.\u201d And, I responded, \u201cYou probably see a sunset and hear music. I hear music and see colors.\u201d Sometimes, I just know what color the song wants to be. And certainly now, the tools to create what I see in my head are greater than ever.<\/p>\n [MM] You started your career building sets and using lighting to enhance theater productions but ultimately opted for touring with musicians. How different are they?<\/strong><\/p>\n [Bud] In many ways, it\u2019s the same thing. So much in music depends on who the artist is and the type of venue they\u2019re playing. When you\u2019re doing smaller places, there\u2019s an opportunity to use theatrical lighting to create intimacy and focus everybody toward the artist. Whether it\u2019s with musicians or a story being told in a play, I live for creating that intimacy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more difficult to pull off in stadiums, because with that huge scale, you lose all the intimacy. If you light an orchestra from one side or people from one side in a theater, it has impact. In a stadium, it looks like something\u2019s wrong. Instead, in stadiums, you create emotions as spectacle\u2014look at the Stones or AC\/DC or Beyonc\u00e9 with her zillions of miles of LED. They\u2019re entirely very different approaches.<\/p>\n I think of being back in college when I really gravitated toward the ability to direct attention and invoke emotions with lighting, like bumping to red to change to another feel and location, or to go from a moment of realism to a moment of fantasy. Those things stay with you.<\/p>\n [Bud] There are songs in his show that are designed to look very theatrical, and others that are more rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. There are songs that have a Chinese feel or Latin feel, and it\u2019s my job to accentuate whatever he\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n At the same time, what\u2019s also really important, because Yanni talks to the audience a lot, is to make him look great on camera. When we do arenas and some large theaters, we\u2019ll use IMAG screens. So, especially then, he has to look like a million bucks, so we can really zoom in on him.<\/p>\n Recently, we\u2019ve been doing more theaters, and the feedback that we\u2019ve gotten from his fan base is how much more they enjoy the intimacy. If you\u2019re playing a 3,000-seat theater, nobody\u2019s more than 100 feet away from the stage, as opposed to the Staples Center, where you\u2019re looking at a stage that\u2019s far away and people are mainly watching screens instead of the stage. That gives me the freedom to use a more theatrical approach.<\/p>\n [MM] How is it lighting locales like the pyramids, where the setting plays a major role in the show? [Bud] These international places each have their own set of challenges, and certainly, the pyramids were no exception. The pyramids and the Sphinx already have some lighting on them, basically just floods that go on and off for their sound and light show. But, when they\u2019re lit for the show, nothing else is and lighting levels are relative. What might look dim in a relatively bright environment, if everything else is off, is going to look fine. Your eyes compensate. But, with our lights, it was obvious the pyramids didn\u2019t have enough light or enough controllable light for us to use what they had for the camera [the show was shot for television]. We ended up bringing in 24 searchlights from Germany just to light the pyramids and the Sphinx.<\/p>\n It became a matter of siting all those fixtures properly, and we used a wireless DMX system<\/a> with repeaters, so we could control them from our position. And, of course, we had no time to really do any of this. I think the lighting for the pyramids arrived a day-and-a-half before we shot the rehearsal. I didn\u2019t see the follow spots turned on until an hour before we shot the dress rehearsal, so I never got to meter them. I had to assume that the color correction would be right and see what happens.<\/p>\n So, basically, we had one night of lighting the stage and the pyramids, and tried to balance the two without seeing it on camera. Actually, I didn\u2019t see it on camera until the dress rehearsal. And, even then, I didn\u2019t have a working TV monitor until the second show. Our video director had brought over cameras and his guys, but we used all local switching gear, etc. We shot it with 4K resolution, so the lighting was very important, but an educated guess at that point.<\/p>\n [MM] Is working internationally typically that difficult? <\/strong><\/p>\n It makes my life hell sometimes. When we tour in the U.S., obviously we carry my lighting rig, so it\u2019s the same every day. The only thing that differs is the theaters and how things are going to fit.<\/p>\n When we travel internationally, all I carry with me are the consoles. The production manager, Ernesto Corti, and I do a lot of advance work, though. We send the promoters our drawings, my plots and equipment specs, and I usually get something back saying we can give you these lights but not these. On a good day, they\u2019ll hang my plot with just some fixture type differences. With consoles these days, I can go in and easily do a swap in the console. I still have to fix gobos and colors and stuff, but hopefully the patch that they give me is accurate\u2014which sometimes it isn\u2019t\u2014and then hopefully their gear works. That\u2019s an easy day.<\/p>\n I have days when they\u2019ll tell me they have one thing, and I get there, and they have something completely different and, hopefully, I\u2019ll have fixture profiles on the console for those lights. Sometimes I\u2019ll get a list with some weird Chinese fixtures or some other unusual fixtures, and I\u2019ll try to have someone\u00a0build profiles for my console. Sometimes, I\u2019ve just got to figure it out.<\/p>\n But you have to be careful about duplicating a light. [Because] then, all of the sudden, your beautiful one light, a down light on a percussion solo, is now four lights coming from different directions.<\/p>\n [MM] You\u2019ve had a very diverse career, how long have you been with Yanni and how did you end up on his team?<\/strong><\/p>\n [Bud] I started with Yanni in late \u201897. I got a call from a friend who did wardrobe for him and, at that time, Yanni had just done his famous Taj Mahal and Forbidden City shows and was looking for a new lighting designer. I knew they were talking to a number of people, but I sent in my resume and two weeks later, got a call from Peter Morse, who I\u2019d worked with for many years, saying they just hired him, and he asked if I wanted to go out and do Yanni with him. So, Peter designed the show, and I did the tour from 1997\u20132005. In 2009, Yanni did a different variety tour with four young singers, called the Voices Tour, and that was produced by Disney. They had Roy Bennett design that one, and Gary Westcott ran it, so I wasn\u2019t involved. Then, they called me in the beginning of 2010 and said they were radically changing the show, moving from arenas into theaters and asked if I\u2019d be interested in redesigning the show for theater. So aside from the Voices Tour in 2009, I\u2019ve run all of Yanni\u2019s shows since 1997.<\/p>\n [MM] How has Martin Lighting supported your work?![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pro.harman.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Carrie-Underwood-2010-3.jpg\")
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[MM] How dramatic of an approach do you take with the lighting design for Yanni?<\/strong><\/p>\n
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The large pyramid of Cheops was visible behind the stage, a kilometer behind the stage. Another pyramid was way off in the distance on stage right, which\u00a0we\u00a0used their lights for, and the third pyramid was just off stage left. The Sphinx was pretty much just up stage right.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pro.harman.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Brian-Setzer-Orchestra.jpg\")
The tough days are at venues where stuff just doesn\u2019t work or the lighting is terrible. Or, we go into a place where there\u2019s a house lighting system that\u2019s not even close to mine in terms of fixture layout. There are over 2,000 cues in Yanni\u2019s show\u2014it\u2019s a very cue-specific and timing-specific show. If my timing is off by a second, it\u2019s obvious and looks wrong. We\u2019ll be somewhere like Kremlin Hall in Moscow, where they have six trusses of lights over the stage, and I\u2019ve got to sit down with their plot, hopefully beforehand, and figure out which of these do I want to make my numbers 101\u2013106? Which do I want to replicate as those numbers? It\u2019s a whole mind exercise of doing that and, if I do that correctly, then all I have to do is fix it when I do my focuses, and everything will fall into place.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pro.harman.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Benise-PBS-Shoot.jpg\")
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