SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Symphony aimed sky-high with last summer’s opening of The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, its $85 million outdoor concert venue nestled between the bay and the downtown skyline. Now, the 112-year-old orchestra is aiming even higher with Wednesday's announcement of the $125 million renovation of its downtown home, the Jacobs Music Center, and 93-year-old concert venue, Copley Symphony Hall.
The comprehensive project is set to be completed in time for next year’s kickoff of the orchestra’s 2023 fall season. The renovation will retain historic elements of Copley Symphony Hall, while bringing it into the 21st century with a redesign that will transform much of the venue.
Prior to Wednesday, the symphony had made no formal announcements, beyond noting it was conducting “mechanical and electrical upgrades” to the hall while “assessing” possible further renovations. The nonprofit arts organization is only now disclosing the expense and extent of the project.
“This is an amazing and fantastic opportunity. I am overjoyed,” Rafael Payare, the symphony’s charismatic music director, told the Union-Tribune.
To bring about this transformation, the symphony is teaming with a veteran triumvirate of collaborators. It includes the noted Connecticut-based acoustical design company Akustiks; Minnesota-based HGA, one of the nation’s leading design and restoration companies for classical music concert halls and other arts facilities; and Schuler Shook, an international theater-planning and architectural-lighting design company.
“I don’t think any of the musicians in the orchestra ever dreamed we could do this extensive a renovation,” said Martha Gilmer, the symphony’s CEO. The orchestra has not performed for an audience at Copley Symphony Hall since the COVID-19 shutdown began in March 2020.
“We wanted to sustain the momentum we had, pre-pandemic,” Gilmer said. “And we believe San Diego deserves to have this beautiful old concert hall repurposed like this. It’s important to make this dream come true.”
A concert hall reimagined
The reasons for Payare and Gilmer’s excitement are multifold:
— Copley Symphony Hall’s stage will be significantly reconfigured and enhanced so that the musicians can see and hear themselves — and fellow orchestra members — much better than before. A permanent new orchestra enclosure and new risers will be added, specifically designed for the new stage whose floor is also being replaced.
— State-of-the-art audio, visual and lighting systems will be installed, along with a tunable acoustic canopy above the stage.
— A permanent elevated choral terrace will be added at the rear of the stage for concerts that feature vocal ensembles collaborating with the orchestra. For non-choral performances, the terrace will offer 75 birds-eye-view seats for concertgoers.
— Acoustical “tuning chambers” and an array of audio-enhancing devices will be installed throughout the hall. These can be adjusted from concert to concert to best accommodate the number of performers, the style of music being performed, and the amplification requirements.
— To improve sightlines and make concerts more intimate, eight rows will be removed from the rear of the venue’s orchestra seating section and one row from the balcony, while the back wall on the main floor will be moved forward to be closer to the stage. As a result, the capacity of the venue will decrease from 2,248 to 1,750.
— All of the seats will be replaced, the angles at which they face the stage will be modified for better viewing, and new aisles will be added.
— New rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms and an expanded music library will be added, along with four to six floors of new office space, a new entrance on Eighth Avenue for artists and staff, a climate-controlled instrument storage facility, and more.
From TV to 4K
“If you could see all the renderings, you would flip out at how beautiful everything will be when the renovations are finished,” said Payare, speaking from a concert stop last week in Bergen, Norway.
“The orchestra is the instrument, and the instrument of the orchestra is the hall itself. This (renovation) will be like going from watching (conventional) TV to watching 4K (resolution).”
Added Gilmer: “Mayor Todd Gloria has made it his mission to think big for San Diego, and we’re committed to being part of that.”
In a written statement, Gloria said that the revitalized Jacobs Music Center “will be an exquisite home for the San Diego Symphony, making it a must-see destination for visitors and further bolstering downtown as an arts destination within the city.”
A partial interior demolition of the hall began last October.
The first key part of the renovation was completed in November, after nearly a year of work. It entailed replacing and relocating the venue’s basement HVAC system, which is now suspended in a portion of the parking garage above the hall.
“Even before COVID-19 began, the plan was to replace the HVAC system,” said Payare, who noted that suggestions from the orchestra’s members have been vital in planning many facets of the renovation.
The new HVAC system, which uses bipolar ionization, is much quieter than the old one. It is one of many upgrades that will help improve the hall’s acoustics and aesthetic qualities.
Veteran acoustician Paul Scarborough of the Akustiks company, which first worked on Copley Symphony Hall in 2002, is collaborating closely on the new renovation with John Frane and Jim Moore of the design and restoration company HGA.
The three most recently teamed on the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s 1,110-seat concert hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Minnesota’s capital city. Frane and Moore also helped design San Diego State University’s new performing-arts district, which has received $37 million in state funding and is scheduled for completion by the end of this year.
“One of the reasons Paul Scarborough suggested us to Martha and the symphony is that we have worked with him on a number of historic theaters,” Frane said from his Los Angeles office.
“We want to celebrate what is grand about Copley Symphony Hall and also bring it into the 21st century. ... That led to us bringing in our expansive team of engineers to look at mechanical systems, catwalks, and other things the audience doesn’t see that are essential.”
“Working with Paul,” Moore added, speaking from Minneapolis, “you get a great sense of the visual and spatial relation in the hall because of the way he integrates them.
“In many concert halls, you can spot the acoustical equipment as something new or different. Paul’s approach is to integrate the new with the old.”
Scarborough is also working on David Geffen Hall, the $500 million-plus new concert venue being built at New York’s Lincoln Center. The first concert he attended at Copley Symphony Hall was nearly 30 years ago.
“One of the major moves we’re doing, acoustically, is to bring the rear wall of the orchestra seating section forward to reduce the number of seats under the balcony,” Scarborough said from his Connecticut office.
“The connection to the music the San Diego audience will feel will be dramatically enhanced by the changes and enhancements we are making. The sense of being a participant in the concert experience, rather than an observer, will be quite striking.”
Symphony CEO Gilmer credits lessons learned from the building of The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park as “very helpful” with the $125 million renovation of Jacobs Music Center.
“We are in the ‘quiet’ phase of fundraising,” she said. “The symphony’s board has confidence this will work, and I do, too. We’ve made a lot of new friends for the orchestra through The Shell, so I really hope there’s an uprising of support for this as well.”
Jacobs Music Center’s Copley Symphony Hall
1929: The hall opened as the Fox Theater on Nov. 8, 1929, nearly two decades after the San Diego Symphony made its debut. It was built at a cost of $2.5 million and was part of the national Fox movie theater chain. Buster Keaton and Will Rogers were among the celebrities who attended the opening.
1984: In 1984, buoyed by a $2 million donation from Helen Copley, then the publisher of The San Diego Union and The Tribune, the symphony bought the entire downtown block that the Fox occupied on B Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues. The symphony sold it to the Charlton-Raynd Development Company, which in turn donated the hall to the symphony. A six-month, $6 million renovation began in March 1985. The Symphony Towers office building, a hotel, and a greatly expanded parking garage were built around and above the hall.
1985: On Nov. 2, 1985, the orchestra debuted in its newly renamed home, Copley Symphony Hall. The opening-night lineup included such guests as jazz piano giant Oscar Peterson, flutist James Galway, actress-singer Diahann Carroll and Broadway star Joel Grey. The orchestra returned on its own three nights later for an all-classical concert. In 1993, a new orchestral shell was installed on the stage.
1996: In 1996, citing debts of around $3 million, the symphony filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. On Jan. 31, 1997, that bankruptcy was changed to Chapter 11. The orchestra was largely silenced for the next two years. A $2 million donation from local businessman Larry Robinson helped rescue the symphony. Several million more was subsequently donated by other supporters, including Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and his wife, Joan.
2002: In 2002, the Jacobses gave a $100 million endowment to the symphony, and another $20 million for operating expenses, to ensure its stability and future. They also gave an additional $10 million to upgrade Copley Symphony Hall, including $2.5 million for extensive lobby renovations and improvements.
2013: In 2013, the venue was rechristened the Jacobs Music Center, but the Copley Symphony Hall name was retained. “We’ve been attached to the symphony for years, and we felt it was important to keep the Copley name,” Irwin Jacobs told the Union-Tribune at the time. “I guess the symphony people, maybe the board, thought this would be a way to attach our name to it but not disturb the Copley Symphony Hall name.”
2020: In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown forced the symphony to cancel all its remaining spring concerts. In September 2020, the orchestra canceled its fall season. Copley Symphony Hall has been dark for two years, apart from filming a few audience-free concerts that were streamed online.
2022: The symphony today announced its $125 million renovation and reimagining of Jacobs Music Center and Copley Symphony Hall. The project is scheduled for completion by the fall of 2023.
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