The New York Times’ Javier C. Hernández surveys New York Philharmonic musicians, guest soloists and composers to find out whether the $550 million renovation of the orchestra’s concert hall in Lincoln Center, touted at its 2022 reopening as “our 2,200-seat crown jewel,” really shines.
The venue, known as Philharmonic Hall when it opened in 1962, then as Avery Fisher Hall after a renovation in 1976, and following the latest renovation as David Geffen Hall, had been notorious for its poor acoustics.
“The hall, a drab shoe-box auditorium, was cavernous and impersonal, with nearly a third of the audience more than 100 feet from the stage,” Hernández writes. “The pianist Emanuel Ax said ‘everything felt distant’ in the old hall.”
In the Geffen refit, 500 seats were removed, the stage was extended into the hall, adjustable sound-reflective acoustical panels were installed, and public spaces around the auditorium were made more inviting.
Initial reviews were mixed – The New Yorker’s Alex Ross likened hearing music in the space to “listening to a world-class stereo system in a dry room” – and the project’s acousticians continued tinkering.
Paul Scarbrough, one of the project’s lead acousticians, told Hernández that “the [sonic] balances that we end up striking . . . are not necessarily the balances that everybody will adhere to or like.”
With the departure of Jaap van Zweden as music director in the spring and his successor, Gustavo Dudamel, not taking over the post until the 2026-27 season, further significant acoustical adjustments are largely on hold until the new conductor weighs in on placement of musicians and development of his desired ensemble sound:
All musicians play at least two instruments: the one in their hands, and the room in which they perform. The sound of one can be affected radically by the sound of the other. If orchestral musicians can’t hear one another, or if the hall’s acoustics favor some sound frequencies and obscure others, producing the proper corporate tone may be difficult to impossible.
Ever since the renovation of the Richmond Symphony’s home hall, the Carpenter Theatre at Dominion Energy Center, which reopened in 2009, the orchestra’s conductors and players have tried various seating configurations on the stage, seeking to beef up lower-string sound, improve balances among instrumental sections, and deal with the acoustical “sweet spot” under the proscenium arch above the stage, which amplifies the sound of instruments placed there.
It took quite some time to balance piano with orchestra in concertos. Balancing orchestral sound with the voices of the Richmond Symphony Chorus remains a work in progress.
Learning to “play” the hall is a years-long endeavor, and an ongoing one. It may be the toughest instrument to master.