Abbey Road Boss Sally Davies on Studio One’s Massive Revamp and ‘Turbo-Charging’ Its Next Decade

In its clip Abbey Road’s Studio One has witnessed immoderate of cinema’s astir nerve-jangling scenes: scores to Star Wars, the Lord of The Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter bid were each chopped successful this legendary room. For Sally Davies, Abbey Road Studios’ managing director, it wasn’t the images connected the projector that had her connected tenterhooks, but the judgments from movie greats connected 1 of the biggest moments successful the studio’s history: Studio One’s long-overdue revamp.

It was the archetypal clip the country had been refreshed and each determination – should the walls beryllium repainted, oregon simply cleaned? – carried the jeopardy of impacting the acoustics of a beloved room. The abstraction tin big a 100-piece orchestra and was initially utilized by classical musicians earlier becoming the preferred signaling abstraction of people composers. Following a league earlier this twelvemonth conducted by two-time Academy Award victor Alexandre Desplat for Jurassic World: Rebirth, the verdict was in: “The country sounds brighter,” Desplat told a relieved Davies. 

These are immoderate of the challenges facing Davies successful 1 of the U.K. euphony industry’s astir important and unsocial roles. “You’ve got an iconic practice successful your hands, and person to marque definite you bash it justice,” Davies tells Billboard U.K. successful the lounge overlooking Studio One successful precocious August. She describes the presumption arsenic a “custodianship and guardianship” and likens it to the titular relation of TV amusement Dr. Who.

Abbey Road Studios successful St. John’s Wood, London archetypal opened successful 1931 and was the location for classical euphony successful Britain with Elgar, Prokofiev and Stravinsky each conducting orchestras here. It was known arsenic EMI Studios until 1976, and saw disconnected the menace of redevelopment erstwhile EMI enactment it up for merchantability successful 2010. Ownership yet transferred to Universal Music subsidiary Virgin Music successful 2012. 

In its time, the Studios person been astatine the bosom of immoderate of the astir beloved and palmy recorded euphony ever released: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (1974), and Radiohead’s The Bends (1995) to sanction a few. Recent occupants see Stormzy, Ezra Collective, Little Simz and Florence + The Machine. 

But portion fans of the Fab Four inactive queue up extracurricular to locomotion the aforesaid zebra crossing seen connected the beforehand of the band’s 1969 LP Abbey Road, Davies is tasked with looking to the future. With the centenary day looming successful 2031, the wider marque is undergoing a refresh to proceed its spot astatine the bosom of euphony culture. “I spot my occupation arsenic being present to substance and turbocharge the adjacent decennary of Abbey Road,” Davies says.

On Oct. 2, the studios volition big the latest variation of the Music Photographers Awards and grant U2 and Depeche Mode collaborator Anton Corbijn, arsenic good arsenic upcoming snappers. Amplify and Equalise, 2 programs that champion emerging signaling and performing endowment (particularly for women), are arsenic important to Davies arsenic the latest superstar swanning done the corridors.

“Those programmes assistance america enactment astatine the fore...