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Tour of Benaroya Hall and AES San Francisco Convention Recap

Eight cool photos of people and the great hall. (216 Kbytes)
Written by Gary Louie, AES PNW Secretary

Tour of Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA - - October 20, 1998

An estimated 140 AES members and guests visited Seattle's Benaroya Hall on October 20, 1998, and had an opportunity to examine in depth this brand new music performance facility.

Benaroya Hall is the new $130 million crown jewel of Seattle's music scene, the home of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and has two performing venues: the 2500 seat S. Mark Taper Auditorium and the 540 seat Ilsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall.

Attendees gathered in the Recital Hall and PNW chair Rick Chinn passed the mic around the room for everyone to briefly introduce themselves. Rick showed some slides various members had taken at the recent AES convention in San Francisco, including shots of many local vendors and members. Vice Chair Aurika Hays also passed around photos. The door prize drawing awarded demo CDs from DEAL Studios, of Redmond WA to 28 people, and a Benaroya T-Shirt to Eric Wilson, an instructor at The Art Institute of Seattle.

Albert Swanson, Seattle Symphony Audio Manager, gave an overview of how the hall came into being. The Symphony performed for decades in the aging and overscheduled Opera House, and dreamed of a hall of its own with better acoustics. Jack Benaroya seeded the project with a $15 million donation. Noted acoustician Cyril Harris was engaged, who designed a classic symphonic facility following a modified shoebox plan, and having 3 tiers of boxes. Swanson described some of the special acoustical details, such as the box-within-a-box design and rubber bushings to float the auditorium. Wall panels were carefully constructed with regard to materials, reflecting surfaces, and resonances of parts of panels.

Speaking next was Steve Olszewski of Dimensional Communications Inc., systems integrator for audio systems installation. He described the electronic reinforcement aspects of the facility. Notably, electronics and speakers took somewhat of a back seat to the pure acoustical purposes of the rooms. Balanced AC power was used for all audio in the facility, and Steve described some of the benefits and problems using it. Some equipment designs seemed unusable with it, others had significantly lower noise floors when using it.

Attendees were then treated to live music when Narada recording artists Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel performed acoustic guitar and wind instrument duets, not only purely acoustically, but also with amplification using the in-house sound system.

Everyone was treated to some soda and cookies in the Bill and Melinda Gates lobby outside the Recital Hall, then started a short tour of the Recital Hall control room, the Auditorium speaker room and catwalk area. Attendees ended up in the main S. Mark taper Auditorium. Rick Chinn, in his capacity as live sound consultant for Benaroya Hall, described some of the aspects of the acoustical design and sound system consideratons for the auditorium. Most interesting was a large door to cover the proscenium speaker soffit, to ensure a good acoustical surface in this area when speakers aren't in use. Once again, Eric Tingstad and Nancy Rumbel took the stage to perform some guitar and wind instrument duets, both acoustic and amplified. Attendees were encourage to roam the auditorium to test the acoustics.

All agreed that the auditorium is an acoustical wonder, and that the unanimously positive reviews the hall has received since opening night have been well-deserved.
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