Jordan Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jordan Hall is a 1,019-seat concert hall in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and part of the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music. It is located one block away from Symphony Hall, and together they are considered two of America's most acoustically perfect performance spaces for classical music. It is the only conservatory building in the United States to be designated a National Historic Landmark.
The hall opened on October 20, 1903, as a gift of Eben D. Jordan II, a Conservatory trustee and a Jordan of the Jordan Marsh retail store. Its architect was Edmund M. Wheelwright of Boston's Wheelwright & Haven, who later designed nearby Horticultural Hall. The hall's unusual square floorplan reflects its underlying plot of land but despite its shape, the hall has excellent acoustics, and all seats on both the main floor and horseshoe-shaped balcony have unobstructed views of the stage. The hall's prominent organ is modeled upon that of the Santa Maria Scala in Siena.
Innumerable performances have taken place in Jordan Hall, including some 650 student performances per academic year as well as appearances by virtually every major classical musician of the past century. That list includes performers Nadia Boulanger, Pablo Casals, the Martha Graham Dance Company, James Galway, pianists Radu Lupu, Rudolf Serkin, Richard Goode, Krystian Zimerman, Garrick Ohlsson,Yundi Li, Richard Stoltzman and Isaac Stern; vocalists Marian Anderson, Dawn Upshaw, Ben Heppner, David Daniels, and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; guitarists Andrés Segovia, Christopher Parkening, Julian Bream, and Sérgio and Odair Assad; conductors Arthur Fiedler and Kurt Masur; composers Béla Bartók and Aaron Copland; jazz legends Stan Getz and Benny Goodman; and the Budapest, Juilliard, Guarneri and Tokyo string quartets.
Jordan Hall is home to From the Top, a National Public Radio classical music show hosted by New England Conservatory alum Christopher O'Riley. In addition, both the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Boston Philharmonic play many of their concerts at Jordan Hall.
