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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > February > 13 > Entry
Long Center: Pitching to be perfect
Last night, the Austin Symphony Orchestra wasn’t but a few minutes into a rehearsal at the new Long Center for the Performing Arts when like fairy godparents, Joe and Teresa Lozano Long slipped in.
The Austin power philanthropists, who gave $22 million to the $77 million two-venue civic performing arts center, had apparently snuck back into town on a quick break from a two-month round-the-world cruise.
Suntanned and relaxed-looking, they beamed with pride as they tiptoed around the Dell Hall, the 2,400-seat main venue, gleeful smiles never leaving their faces. After trying out seats in couple of different places in the orchestra section, they crept up to the mezzanine.
“Peter, you sound great!” shouted Joe Long from the mezzanine when symphony conductor Peter Bay paused for a break.
“We’ve never had sound this good in Austin,” Long said a few moments later after he and his wife had checked out the balcony and one of the parterre boxes.
That’s for sure.
Although tweaks are still being made by acoustician Mark Holden of Jaffe Holden Acoustics, the Dell Hall already sounds pitch-perfect.
Featuring a classical theater design with parterre, mezzanine and balcony levels essentially wrapping around the orchestra level seating, the Dell Hall provides immediately more intimate seating than any other major theater in Austin.
Add to that some sharp architectural acoustic design that gently directs the sound around the hall instead of giving it harsh angles to echo off of, and you’ve got a theater that sounds both clear and warm.
It certainly did last night.
Cherrywood paneling, hand-buffed Venetian plaster walls and a series of motorized cloth banners and tracked curtains add to more audio quality.
An especially clever feature are the “transparent” balconies that allow sound to move through openings rather than get trapped underneath a balcony and deaden as sound frequently does in most traditional venues. Last night, from behind the last row seats in the upper balcony, the symphony sounded as bright and warm and detailed as it did from the best seats on the orchestra level. Utterly impressive.
Also on hand at last night’s closed rehearsal was Conspirare director Craig Hella Johnson. The Grammy-nominated choir will not only take part in the Long Center opening festivities in March, but come June, Conspirare is destined to blow the roof off the place with Verdi’s dramatic “Requiem,” the ultimate power choral music if there ever was any. Johnson, who also tried out the sound from different seats throughout the theater, said he was “impressed” with the Dell Hall and found it “very intimate.”
The Long Center will open with a Sneak Peek Free Open House March 6 to 9 with performances, tours and all kinds of activities including a presentation of “The Earth Harp,” a monumental stringed instrument by New York-based multimedia performers MASS Ensemble.
Austin Symphony Orchestra will make its Long Center debut April 4-5 with guests Minneapolis Guitar Quartet. Then in May the symphony will do Beethoven’s majestic Ninth Symphony.
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By Tomas Elijio Ybarra
February 14, 2008 2:19 AM | Link to this
Thanks to the Long Family, for continuing to give back to the City they Love; as all Native Austinites do. Respectfully Yours, Tomas Elijio Ybarra - Co Founder - Con Drama Inc (Austin, Tejas).