Frederic Chopin's "Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61" is a magnificent piece performed by Xiaodan Chen.  This particular recording was for her audition/demo CD for admission into graduate work in piano performance.  With an emphasis on performance, she is obviously a remarkable pianist.  This was a solo project through-and-through, with all Engineering and Production done by myself and was recorded in the open hall of a church.

While this is just a solo piano recording, there were various mic techniques used to ensure the best sound the first time.  Such techniques included a Mid-Side pair, standard X/Y configuration, and A/B (Spaced Pair), as well as close-mic techniques, such as X/Y at the rim of the lid and a spaced pair over the low and high strings.  In the end, the close-mic'd spaced pair was chosen, as it still presented enough of the room's presence, but was ultimately the most true representation of the instrument's color.  Typically, this is unusual to use such close mic's.  However, due in part to the requirements of the audition CD, as well as the fact that this is a solo piano with no other instruments or voices, I chose to make this a more intimate, almost ambient, recording.