tips, any experience in this?

[swap]

hi all, yesterday i got a "job", there is this university here wich is mounting a play, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, so they asked me to compose some music for the play, this needs to be ready for december, it is gonna have a female voice in it, and some kind of choir, i m supposed to compose the music and other person is gonna write lyrics, thats the principal song but there should be other songs in the play too. i ´ll compose it, get the musicians and then record the songs to a cd wich is gonna be played during the play.

I thought something like pipe organs and choirs, etc. but i would like to have some tips to know that could be useful during the process, maybe composing, or arranging, or recording and mixing tips that could help me with this kind of work.
for example: ¿should i use cathedral reverb while mixing and what happens to this reverb when the auditorium´s natural reverb adds, how should i calculate effects so they traduce well in the PA, i suppose it wont sound the same as my monitors, my mixing room is VERY different from the auditorium.. . and the auditorium is different than a cathedral...thats an example... and also what kind of music is contemporaneus to the story, i know the Ars Antiqua is related to this cathedral but Ars antiqua is from 1140 and the story happens around 1400... and, i will be using my keyboards pipe organ, the violin will be real,
so, any help would be appreciatted....

thanks

 

[mixmkr]

Describing my experiences with prerecorded music, etc., etc......I record backing tracks to a CD to take to our church for the choir to sing along with, supplement the musicians on specials...and stuff like that. I have found that the reverb and delays...and even chorus effects that sound GREAT in my home studio, don't come off as well in the church sanctuary. I also NEVER compress the final CD audio tracks at all. If I use any compression, it is on individual things like bass to help smooth out random levels, and stuff like that. I also even boost the high end a tad. When people fill up the place, it tends to soak up the high end pretty quickly. So...I go for the "punchy-est", "dry-est", "crispy-est" mix I can get. Using the room's natuaral reverb always seems to work out best. (of course, special effects excluded!!)

If you can take a VARIETY of sample mixes to the auditorium, BEFORE the actual play (like maybe rehersals??), I think you'll learn more than a picture which is more than 10,000 words.