Symphony Hall right down in downtown Seattle
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Looks like it belongs in Los Angeles. But I'll have to admit that it adds a lot to a Third Avenue that prior to the construction of Benaroya Hall was getting very down at the ears.
Nice to hear a waft of classical music--although it has become more and more pop-sounding--for those people waiting to catch a bus on Third Avenue.
The acoustics are supposedly very good--but I have a "tin ear" but such things.
Have been to only three concerts or recitals here since it opened, the first marred by a gentlemen who obviously was not there for the experience of a live classical recital: he thumbed through a magazine, loudly, the whole time, rarely looking up.
It was a wonderful idea to build a symphony hall right in the heart of downtown. The Nordstrom Recital Hall is for recitals--chamber music, principally. The Grand Lobby is glitzy-ritzy.
Behind Benaroya Hall is a Garden of Remembrance, with its dark granite wall dedicated to war veterans and its discreetly placed, well manicured shrubbery and gently cascading pools of water--all fairly close to an entrance to the Metro Tunnel. And across Second Avenue is the post-modernist Robert Venturi (with its giddy art deco references, etc.) addition to the Seattle Art Museum.