SUSTAINABILITY STORIES
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ustainability has always been at the forefront of everything I do,” says Daniel Pembroke, who throughout his interview with LIVE, outlines an impressive commitment to environmentally focused practices across the many facets of his career – as an educator and academic, festival co-founder and producer, and techno producer and DJ. Now programme director of live music production and design at Berklee NYC institute of contemporary music and the performing arts, Pembroke is a firm believer that the route to change starts with awareness. “If you’re not talking about sustainability and being responsible with it, then people are not going to address it,” he says. “It’s one of the topics I explore right from the beginning of our first semester, so students are thinking about sustainability in live shows. That might include things that can be done before or after a show, such as shutting off and power cycling the equipment as well as using the right materials – and not using plastic water bottles. I do think we’re making an impact, though it’s a long road because it’s still not often talked about in the industry.” Pembroke is certainly playing his part in trying to change the conversation. A background in architecture and design helped instill a “focus on space, how space reflects change and how change is reflective in space and people. I brought a lot of that S
to the table with Berklee NYC, including a strong emphasis on making collaborative and student spaces that can be employed extremely effectively.” Indeed, it is clear that nurturing collaboration – not to mention an all-encompassing approach to producing and delivering live events – is integral to the master’s degree programme now overseen by Pembroke. “We have classes such as project management, set design, story narrative and business entrepreneurship, as well as an interdisciplinary focus which addresses multichannel live sound. We also cover lighting, cameras and content creation, while a show control class focuses on how technology interfaces with all these different components and anything that’s to do with the production.” MAKING PROGRESS IN THE MOTOR CITY This belief in the importance of a truly holistic approach to live production is rooted partly in personal experience, not least as a partner of Charivari Detroit, an electronic music festival held each August. The event is taking a year off in 2024, but there’s no doubting the breadth of the eco measures its organisers have sought to implement over the years – from eliminating the ‘extraneous use of lighting’, to experimenting with green bicycles as power sources, and the development of less
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