When in Doubt, Send a Soprano In To Do a Home Depot Job

Gary Karr with his instrument

"Double bass virtuoso Gary Karr has played in all of the world's great concert halls, from La Scala in Italy to the Sydney Opera House, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London. Karr and pianist Harmon Lewis - his partner in life as well as on stage - have entertained audiences throughout the Middle East, in Russia, Japan, North and South America, Europe and Asia. But their favourite concert hall is the one they created in their three-storey, cliff-side home in Victoria....To create an acoustically superb space, they brought the walls in slightly and angled them so there would be no echo. 'You need to bend walls so there are no parallel surfaces,' said Lewis, who has a doctorate in organ music. They also added mirrors to enhance the lively sound. The storage-room ceiling was unfinished. 'It was a very unfriendly room,' Karr said. To solve the problem, the homeowners created an accordion ceiling and covering it with multi-coloured floor tiles. 'Home Depot didn't have enough of any one colour to do the ceiling and the floor, so we made a rainbow room,' Karr said with a chuckle. Montreal-born soprano Pierrette Simoneau, who formed Opera Piccola in Victoria in 1982, helped choose the tile colours." [Source]