MARY ELLEN WRIGHT | Staff WriterA team from Clair Global, the Lititz-based company that provides sound for major national and international concert tours, packed up a little extra hardware in Los Angeles Sunday night, Jan. 7.
They won a Creative Arts Emmy for their sound work on the concert special "Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium."
The Creative Arts Emmys honor "artistic and technical achievement in American prime time television."
On its Facebook page Tuesday, Clair Global wrote: "We'd like to extend a huge congratulations to the entire team who worked on 'Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium' on taking home the award for Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Series Or Special at this year's Creative Arts Emmy Awards."
In a press release from the Creative Arts Emmys organization, the winning team members are listed as Michael Abbott, broadcast production mixer; Erick Schilling, music mixer; Matt Herr, FOH mixer, Alan Richardson, monitor mixer; and Christian Schrader, supplemental audio mixer.
The Elton John farewell concert was produced in 2022; it is still airing on Disney+. The 2023 Emmy Awards — both Creative Arts and Primetime Emmys — were delayed until this month from their usual September broadcast slots by last year's strikes by the Writers Guild and the actors union, SAG-AFTRA.
Clair Global is one of several companies located in the Rock Lititz complex in Warwick Township, including TAIT and Atomic — two other companies that design and support concert tours for major artists.
Clair Global was founded as a sound equipment business by Lititz brothers Roy and Gene Clair. They famously provided sound for a Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons concert at Franklin & Marshall College in 1966. They impressed the band and wound up touring with them.
When Gene Clair died in 2013, Elton John dedicated "Your Song" to him at a December concert in Madison Square Garden in New York City. John told the audience that the sound on his tours had been provided by Clair since the beginning of his career — at that time, it had been 44 years.
The company did the sound for John's "Farewell Yellow Brick Road" Tour.
An edited broadcast of the Creative Arts Emmys, which were given out over two nights on Jan. 6 and 7, will air on FXX at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, and be available for streaming on Hulu on Sunday, Jan. 14. On Monday, Jan. 15, the Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast at 8 p.m. on Fox.
In addition, Clair Global was the sound company for three of the concert tours that Front of House magazine named its top 10 tours of 2023: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Morgan Wallen's "One Night at a Time" tour and the Elton John farewell tour.
