Orchestra Hall's Next Movement

The acoustics also need to be tunable for non-symphonic music, Grangaard says: “The great symphonic acoustics limit our ability to be the destination for other kinds of music. The bright acoustics distort the sound of [singer] Linda Eder or [rocker] Elvis Costello or acoustic guitar. To support a world-class symphony orchestra, we need to develop other revenue streams. It should be the place where people come to hear great jazz, salsa music, acoustic guitar.” The orchestra’s 2007–2008 season includes 200 offerings other than the 66 classical music subscription concerts, and the orchestra’s strategic plan projects that non-symphonic musical events and more rental of the updated hall should generate 50 percent more net revenue than it does now.

To accommodate different sound requirements, the hall could incorporate a system that could be adjusted for amplified concerts. For instance, panels of soft, sound-absorbent material could be added, then removed or swung from one side to another as needed.

Other fixes that have been proposed for inside the hall include adding a large video screen. The underlying goal: to create a more intimate experience. “The video will help people, especially those who feel it is aloof, by bringing the orchestra players closer,” Grangaard says. “When we play Pictures at an Exhibition or Ravel, we can display artwork. When Billy Joel plays, you can see every move. But when Alfred Brendel plays, you can’t see his 76-year-old hands on the keyboard.” Even Vänskä, at first skittish about video, has come around and sees it as a potential asset: “There will be concerts where I’d love to use it, and there will be concerts where we won’t need it.”

The desire for intimacy is driving not only the proposed choir loft but also a reconfiguration of the stage. To squeeze the loft in back of the orchestra, the stage would be moved three or four rows of seats into the hall. This would bring more of the patrons in the tiers closer to the players—and to Vänskä and his mesmerizingly intense conducting.

“We’ll bring the stage into the hall so we’re more part of the room. We want the feeling of being closer to the audience,” Fleezanis says. “I’ve played in halls with the audience all around us. I’ve always loved that.”

A Local Hero?

The orchestra’s management entity has been without a CEO since last February, when Tony Woodcock left abruptly to head the New England Conservatory of Music. The orchestra’s new president and CEO, Michael Henson, was scheduled to arrive from Bournemouth, England, in late January. Under his leadership, the Bournemouth Symphony became the best-funded symphony in England.

Henson will work with a small committee of orchestra supporters and community leaders that will be charged with selecting an architect. While the Walker and the Guthrie went for glitzy, “world-class” architects Herzog & de Meuron and Jean Nouvel, respectively, some locals want a Minnesotan to handle Orchestra Hall.

Names discussed sotto voce include James Dayton, whose recently completed MacPhail Center for Music in downtown Minneapolis has earned rave reviews; Julie Snow, designer of the Museum of Russian Art on Diamond Lake Road; Vince James, who designed the Minneapolis Rowing Club and a house for Kenneth and Judy Dayton on Lake of the Isles; and Joan Soranno of Minneapolis-based Hammel Green and Abrahamson, architect of the Barbara Barker Center for Dance at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s time to hire a great local architect,” Rybak says. “When architects from Minneapolis are doing international work like MacPhail, it’s time to recognize them.”

Grangaard says that the $3 million in planning money being requested from the 2008 legislature will enable the orchestra to kick-start the project and devise a schedule for the renovation. There is no stated completion date, though it may be worth noting that Vänskä’s contract is up in 2011.

For his part, Vänskä desires a renovation plan for Orchestra Hall that will make it as dramatic and ambitious as his orchestra. “We are too Minnesotan right now,” he says. “We are too modest.”