Couldn't resist. Another spiral, maybe better than the last one. Interesting views all over the new Powell Hall.
We're in New Jersey now, visiting my three sibs, their spouses, kids and grandkids. We flew into La Guardia, which is a pretty nice airport these days. When we got in the rental car it was 106 F / 41 C, worse than back home. No outdoor activities here, but we all have AC.
When Powell Symphony Hall reopened almost a year ago, we found an ultra-modern new building surrounding two sides of the old one. It adds a lot of space for the public, but also adequate dressing rooms for the musicians, especially the women, who now make up half of the players. They have a comfortable lounge. There are proper executive offices, a music library, instrument storage and a large public education room. Lots of the inside views are pretty good, too.
Looking back and up from the edge of the stage at Powell Symphony Hall. I don't know how you would describe the architecture and decoration style (help welcome). I think that the ceiling is pink from the white LED lights reflecting off red upholstery. The balcony goes up much farther than you can see from this angle. You might be able to find an usher standing just below and left of center. Our seats are around there.
Powell Symphony Hall looks good after its restoration. The LED lights are adjustable, economical and cool. The new seats are very comfortable. We prefer to sit in the front of the balcony, however. We like to be able to look down at all the players, front to back. Everyone agrees that the sound is better upstairs.
Mrs. C and I have been subscribers to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for something in the upper 40s of years. Our first date in April 1973 was there (cheapest seats, Mahler's 1st). They had an open house for subscribers yesterday morning, coffee and pastries, short talk by an orchestra member, three pieces by a quartet drawn from the string section, go check out the view from your seats.
The century-old hall had been closed for two years for complete restoration, reopening last fall. We were not happy with our seat assignments, then moving around program by program. Long talk with the box office and our new ones are pretty good. I'll wander around the architecture for a bit.
One of the last stops on our tour of Powell Symphony Hall was a place I never thought about, the percussion storage room. This view is only a small part of it. Everything you can imagine that goes bang, thump or bing is in there. We were sternly told not to touch anything but couldn't I just flick a fingernail on one of those surfaces?
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Backstage at the Jack C. Taylor Music Center in the musicians' lounge. It's large, modern and comfortable. There are sets of cubbyholes where members can keep their favorite mug. My favorite is second row, third column where first violinist Emily Ho has a mug labeled Santa's Favorite Ho.
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Recent posts have shown the interior of the renovated Powell Symphony Hall in all its old-fashioned opulence. A big part of the project was a large addition to the building on two sides; the whole thing is now called the Jack C. Taylor Music Center. (Mr. Taylor was the the founder of a large international car rental company based here.) It's a huge benefit to the organization, with space for modern offices, meeting and rehearsal rooms, musicians' dressing rooms and lounges, the music library and more. However, the new public areas strike us as sterile, in sharp contrast to the opulent old interior. Maybe people will get used to it. They did to the glass pyramid at the Louvre.
The view from the stage at Powell Hall, but hopefully with the seats full of patrons. Across the center in the first level up from the floor are the Mezzanine Boxes, where the self-styled elite can feel their privilege, albeit with the worst acoustics in the house. The view of the balcony is foreshortened but it goes way back. Unlike many symphony halls that are longer front to back, Powell is wider, reflecting its origin as a movie and Vaudeville venue.
Upstairs at Powell Symphony Hall. As part of the renovation, a few hundred seats were removed, with new, wider and more comfortable chairs installed. For many years, our subscription seats were front row center of the lower balcony, just behind where the group is standing. I'm old, tall and arthritic, and loved the luxurious legroom. Unfortunately, in the new configuration that row has less foot room than the last row on Spirit Airlines (or Ryanair, your pick) and was really uncomfortable. We've moved around since, looking for a new base. First world problems.
Continuing on the tour of Powell Symphony Hall, this is a view of the stage from the balcony. There can be many more musicians on stage than the chairs here suggest. (Think Beethoven 9th or Verdi Requiem.) The many lights directed at the stage were changed to LEDs during the renovation. Our tour guide told us that the hall's electric bill dropped dramatically after the change.
A break from the public sculpture series for a special event. Our beloved St. Louis Symphony Orchestra closed its home, Powell Hall, for a major renovation, restoration and addition lasting two years. It was a grand old movie theater that became the orchestra's home in 1968, but with far too little space for all its needs.
We think this is our 47th year as subscribers so this is a big deal to us. The orchestra arranged for front and back of the house tours this month and we went yesterday. This is the old main lobby, that has many architectural references to the chapel at the Palace of Versailles. More to come.
Most of our friends (except, as it turns out, me and Mrs. C) have seen the holiday movie Home Alone. To generate a little extra revenue, the mighty St. Louis Symphony Orchestra showed the movie this weekend with full accompaniment for John Williams’ score. We took granddaughter Ellie, who thought it was much better than watching it on television.
I’ll need to fill in some more from Garden Glow as the year ends. No new images since we are driving to Kansas City today for a funeral. Too many people—like us—getting too old.
We have a top-tier symphony orchestra but, this being St. Louis, it rarely sells out. That wasn’t so this weekend, when three performances of Messiah played to packed houses. Baroque master Nicholas Mc Geegan led with a reduced orchestra and chorus appropriate to the time of composition. The crowd went wild.
People listening to the St. Louis Classical Guitar Quartet, seen in yesterday’s post. Most of the audience is paying close attention, except for, maybe, the girl on the lower left on her phone and the man on the right, who I think is more interested in his date. And, well, me.
Our beloved St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performs in a hundred-year-old building, originally designed for movies and vaudeville. It was remodeled to become the orchestra’s home in the late 1960s. Mrs. C and I went on our first date there in the spring of 1973 (Mahler’s First, but I don’t remember what she wore) and we’ve now been subscribers for, I think, 47 years. Despite good acoustics, the hall had many drawbacks, with very inadequate backstage space.
It had been closed for two years for a major restoration and construction of a large new building covering two sides of the old hall. We’ve been to a few performances already but there was a public open house on Saturday showing off all the new stuff. Here, a septet of orchestra members perform as a tango group (unfortunately, no bandoneon). Having visited Argentina a few times, I love tango. The group played some of the biggest hits, including Carlos Gardel's Por Una Cabeza and Astor Piazzola’s Libertango.
Grant us peace. We could use some uplift after the week we’ve had.
As I mentioned, we went to a performance of Mozart’s Requiem yesterday. One of the good things about this town is that we have a spectacularly good symphony orchestra, really top tier. That’s our wooly-headed music director, Stéphane Denève, on the podium. The music was at times terrifying but ended with hope. I’m grasping for some.
Always looking for something to do to entertain the kid. A few times a year the St. Louis Symphony will play the score to a screening of a popular movie. Even a top tier orchestra like ours needs to hustle up extra ways to pay the bills. Ellie loved it, but I don't think she was attuned to the nuances of the performance.
