[dave weil]

The Schermerhorn is finally open. It's a stunning hall and it's
reported to have incredible acoustics. It's very similar to both
Boston Symphony Hall and the Concertgeboux in terms of volume, layout
and seating capacity. The acousticians tried to combine the best of
both halls, the volume and projection of the Concertgeobux combined
with the clarity of the Boston. Everything has been factored in, from
the seat padding to the design of refracting and reflecting surfaces.
The hall itself is separated from the "outer box" by a three (or is it
two?) inch acoustic gap and all of the mechanicals are isolated in the
outer box. It's got large windows high up which let in light, and the
inner windows are two inch thick while the outer windows on the outer
wall of the outer box are three inches thick, and they are separated
by about 2 feet of air space. The seats are on movable sections which
retract into the basement under a folding floor, so they can turn the
whole hall into a dancehall in about two hours. They did a dry run a
couple of weeks ago with a full audience where the orchestra performed
and, in between, they performed sweep tests with a mic'ed dummy at a
designated seat. Not only did this allow them to fine tune the actual
structure when necessary, they set a standard for recording whereby
you'll be hearing the recording close to what you would hear from this
seat (unless the producer chooses otherwise, of course).

Leonard Slatkin is the "musical advisor" and sometimes conductor. They
broadcast the opening conert and it was really fine. It featured a
piece from Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer with a friend of theirs on
tablas, a "Triple Concerto" which made its debut last night.

It was $123 mil well spent. And it came in on time and on budget.

I can't wait to attend an event there...