Author Archives: Music Concierge

Many of us travel to beach resorts in order to forget our lives for a little while, to leave our everyday stresses in the departure lounge, and to shift the pace of our days to a different, gentler rhythm. The most successful hotels are those that understand how to facilitate this transition, and give their guests the sensory cues they need to ease themselves into serenity.

One such resort is Zuri Zanzibar, a village-style collection of 55 villas and bungalows spread out beside the immaculate sands of Unguja’s northern shore. Built on principles of sustainability and social responsibility, the independent resort aims to create a feeling of being removed from the worries of the everyday world. It’s a place to let go and live in the moment – without foregoing the creature comforts of a luxury beach resort.

Another important dimension of the Zuri Zanzibar philosophy is the need to cultivate an authentic sense of place. The resort’s clientele – predominantly well-travelled individuals from Europe and Asia – demand the luxurious standards of a high-end resort, but they also expect a genuine ‘Spice Island’ experience. Zuri Zanzibar’s architecture and interior design draw their inspiration from the lush tropical surroundings and the local Swahili culture – as well as the island’s history as a key port on the trade routes with Arabia.

The Music Concierge team were called upon to ensure this distinctive sense of place was also reflected in the sound of the resort, and that, wherever guests went, they would be aurally encouraged to cast aside distractions and be ‘present’ in the moment.

By weaving together a contemporary musical identity from diverse cultures – a sort of ‘Afro-Euro-Arabesque’ – we developed a master-brand sound that could be used as the basis for seven distinct music channels in various zones within the resort. Adapted to suit the function of each zone and adjusted in tempo to match the time of the day, these carefully tailored channels help shape guests’ moods and memories as they move from place to place. At the same time it never distracts them from the most important thing: ditching mental baggage and being present in the moment.

When it opened at the beginning of 2018, all eyes were on The Murray. Already a Hong Kong landmark, the building first burst onto the skyline in 1969. Almost instantly, it won architectural acclaim for its modern façade and ahead-of-its-time sustainability (care of temperature-reducing recessed windows).

The Murray served as a government building for most of its life, and was earmarked for preservation as an important part of the city’s heritage when the residents moved on. So, when new owners Wharf Hotels announced in 2011 that The Murray would be reinvented as the 336-key flagship property in its modern-luxe Niccolo brand, expectations ran high.

In Hong Kong’s hyper-competitive hospitality landscape, a hotel has to tick a lot of boxes to make the luxury-travel hot lists. Niccolo’s brand builders knew this, so they went to great lengths to ensure that their headline hotel would deliver the contemporary urban chic that its style-savvy Asian and international audience demanded, and do justice to the iconic status of the building.

Foster + Partners were tasked with transforming the interiors. Music Concierge were handed responsibility for the sounds of the space. It was crucial that the audio brand identity we created for The Murray complemented Sir Norman Foster’s ultramodern design vision, and had the functionality to suit specific spaces.

The Murray’s lobby, for example, is a vast, largely open, two-storey space encompassing the reception area, the Tai Pan restaurant, The Murray Lane cocktail bar, and The Garden Lounge afternoon tea area – a single playlist had to respond to the mood, pace and design of all of them.

On the rooftop, Popinjays bar and restaurant stakes its claim on the Hong Kong night scene, with some of the best panoramic views in the city, a refined European menu and a see-and-be-seen fashionista clientele. Here, the soundtrack had to reflect the venue’s easy-going sophistication, and energise the evening for a cosmopolitan mix of locals and hotel guests.

The music of the Murray may not be the first thing you notice about the hotel, but every note has been engineered to underpin the sensory experience of stepping inside. The sound had to bring the space together, balancing the heritage of the building with the modernity of its Foster-designed fabric.

Less than a year after opening, The Murray has bagged itself almost every award going – from the top spot on Condé Nast Traveler readers’ HK hotlist to a feature on TIME’s ‘World’s Greatest Places 2018’. It looks like all those expectations have been more than met.

First impressions aren’t made by sight alone. Every one of our senses contributes to the sum total of our experience. If one sense is out of sync, the whole experience can be diminished.

For a business like a hotel, which depends upon its customers feeling a certain way and picking up a certain vibe, taking a holistic view of the atmosphere you create and understanding the individual sensory components that create it can have a tremendous impact on your success.

One of the most successful and widely beloved luxury brands in the global hotel sector is Mandarin Oriental. It owes its reputation not simply to the fantastic locations of its properties, perfectly judged service across the board, or its invariably exceptional standards of design, but to the way all these diverse elements cohere to shape the overall guest experience. For every Mandarin Oriental hotel team, that experience is all.

With a hugely covetable location on the fashion-forward, city-central Passeig de Gràcia, Mandarin Oriental Barcelona is a flagship property for the group. Arguably the most luxurious hotel in a city full of fierce competition, it attracts an affluent, well-travelled and culturally attuned international clientele, who are drawn to its peerless service standards and perfect design balance of contemporary chic and period prestige.

To stay ahead of the game, the guest experience has to be pitch perfect. Which is why, when the Mandarin Oriental team identified that the hotel’s music had become the weak link in the experience, they were quick to address the issue.

The soundtrack from the hotel’s existing provider had become out of step with the design calibre of the hotel and the clientele it sort to cultivate, so we were invited to develop new sounds for each of the Mandarin Oriental’s key areas.

These included the dramatic open lobby space extending into all-day dining restaurant Blanc and the Mimosa garden; the two-Michelin-star restaurant Mimosa; the rooftop poolside Peruvian bar Terrat; the spectacular cocktail spot Banker’s Bar; and the spa. Each required a distinct soundscape that complemented the design of the space and the changing pace of the day, striking a balance between the Spanish location and international clientele, matching the fashionable vibe of the hotel’s setting, and expressing the upmarket, new-luxe identity of the Mandarin Oriental brand.

To address the needs of complex, multifaceted property such as this requires an in-depth understanding of how the space is lived day-to-day, taking into account the diverse and changing needs of users (for example, the lobby playlist needs to communicate a sense of theatre to guest arrivals, accommodate business guests conducting meetings, and create a buzz for diners lunching in Blanc – all at the same time). By spending time on site, engaging each of the restaurant managers and on-the-ground stakeholders, and experiencing the hotel as a guest would, we were able to develop a family of soundscapes that enriched the drama of the hotel’s design while meeting the needs and enhancing the moods of every type of guest.

Music Concierge’s collaborative approach to sound design has helped restore the Mandarin Oriental Barcelona guest experience to what it should be: an elevated, immersive expression of contemporary luxury in which every one of the senses plays a part.

Shanghai has rapidly emerged as one of the most exciting destinations in China – but it’s taken a while for many of its hotels to cotton on. Until very recently, the hotel landscape was dominated by big-chain behemoths, delivering travellers the same high-end but homogenous experience with little innovation. Now, that’s starting to change, with imaginative, experience-led hospitality concepts making inroads into the culturally rich city.

At the vanguard of this evolution is The Middle House – the fourth opening for Swire Hotels’ ‘House Collective’, which has made such an impact in Beijing, Hong Kong and Chengdu with The Opposite House, The Upper House and The Temple House respectively. The hotel taps into China’s growing audience of affluent, entrepreneurial, cultured and creative millennials, as well as international travellers accustomed to the new breed of personalised luxury – sophistication without the starch.

Design is of course a big part of its impact – from the sleek gunmetal chic of its Café Gray Deluxe restaurant and bar and the lighter, laid-back ambience of its Italian outlet Frasca, to the contemporary Chinese Restaurant Sui Tang Li – but it’s the creative use of music that sets the mood of each space. We’ve worked with The Middle House to develop signature sounds for every area of the hotel, enhancing the see-and-be-seen vibrance of Café Gray, striking a contrasting retro note in the lobby, and matching the forward-thinking design of spa and 24-hour gym with a highly distinctive, future-focused sound.

Shifting in mood and tempo with the ebb and flow of the day, The Middle House’s audio landscape has been crafted alongside its physical design and audience mindset, ensuring that the customer experience was clearly defined from the moment it first opened its doors in April 2018. With the hotel already having had a significant impact on the Shanghai hospitality scene in just six months of launch, the argument for innovation is sounding even stronger.

November brings us the final events of the Sleeper Magazine’s AHEAD awards – the mammoth two-year international programme to celebrate the brightest lights in global hospitality.

Since early 2017, AHEAD (or to give them their proper title, the Awards for Hospitality, Experience and Design) have been honouring the most exceptional, spectacular and forward-thinking hotels and resorts in Asia, Europe, MEA and the America over four awards events each year – all of which Music Concierge has had the pleasure of soundtracking.

We’re currently polishing off the playlists for the MEA awards evening at Dubai’s Meydan Hotel on 14 November and the Europe event at Park Plaza  in London on the 19th. Each pitting around 40 shortlisted hotels head to head across 12 categories, these are the final two legs of the awards before the grand global showdown in 2019, when the best of the best will be decided.

Our fingers will of course be crossed for Music Concierge clients The Silo in Cape Town, Nobu Shoreditch, Adare Manor in Ireland (pictured above) and the Birnam Brasserie at Gleneagles, all of which are contenders…