The San Diego Symphony’s Renewed Jacobs Music Center Is Finally Ready to Open Its Doors Again

Now that the extensive three-year renovation of the Jacobs Music Center, the San Diego Symphony’s downtown home at 7th Avenue and B Street, has been completed, Symphony patrons will soon be enjoying regular concerts in indoor comfort. Although the opening concert is not scheduled until Saturday, September 28,  on Tuesday San Diego Symphony C.E.O. Martha A. Gilmer invited members of the press to tour the extensive building renovations and observe 20 minutes of a rehearsal of the orchestra and members of the San Diego Master Chorale conducted by San Diego Symphony Music Director Rafael Payare in the new space.

I am delighted to report that the appearance  of the redesigned concert hall is stunning and that no portion of the building has been overlooked to create commodious spaces for both individual and ensemble rehearsing. Ample climate-controlled storage space for instruments has been provided, as well as a comfortable room for musicians to relax or study scores when their instrument is not required on stage. Every concert-goer knows the difference between the number of players needed for a Mahler Symphony compared to an early Mozart Symphony is more than just the percussion crew and three trombones!

The impetus for this $125 million renovation, however, was not simply to upgrade the facility’s interior design, but to significantly improve its acoustical properties. From from the music we heard at the beginning of Tuesday’s rehearsal, the opening of Carl Orff’s exciting Carmina burana–I believe the extensive acoustical alterations to the entire room have significantly improved the orchestra’s ensemble sound in the hall.

The building was designed as the Fox Theater, an opulent 1929 movie palace, and since the San Diego Symphony acquired the building in 1984, it has attempted to solve the problem of the room’s less than hospitable acoustics for live orchestral music. I reviewed Music Director David Atherton’s opening concert with the San Diego Symphony in the newly acquired Fox Theater, and the weak, unfocused sound of the orchestra made many San Diegans wonder why the orchestra left the Civic Theatre. Over the years improvements such as a hardwood shell constructed around the stage area have been made, but it was clear that it did not solve the acoustical problem and that the room itself also needed retooling.

With the removal of the stage area’s unusually low proscenium arch as well as a pair of intrusive pillars, the stage area has now been completely opened up and expanded. It is now closer to the audience seating, and a new upper level gallery for the chorus has been installed in a U-shape around the stage’s perimeter. Twenty adjustable acoustical clouds are suspended above the stage and will aid in directing the orchestra’s sound into the hall. The new hardwood stage floor is strategically layered to project sound and is no longer compromised by vibrations from the heating and air conditioning mechanisms formerly located directly beneath the stage. These mechanisms have been relocated and attached to the parking structure directly above the hall to insulate the hall from this machinery.

As promised in the plans proposed by the HGA architectural firm and developed by theater planner Schuler Shook, the main floor seating has been raised and completely reconfigured in a wide semi-circle that angles every seat towards the orchestra. The rear wall has been brought forward significantly, eliminating some 400 seats that were lost in the deep overhang of the balcony. Including the choral terrace seating, the hall now will seat an audience of 1831. Acoustician Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks explained that all of the interior walls have been treated in such a way that their layered construction will neither absorb sound nor sharply bounce it back.

After the Jacobs Music Center’s September 28 opening concert, the following day from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. the Symphony will offer an open house of free performances and activities by a wide array of performing ensembles from San Diego County and Baja California. This Day of Music will include the First Marine Division Band Wind Ensemble, the Ballet Folklórico Jalisciense, Coro “Redes” del Sistema Estatal de Música de Baja California, The San Diego Children’s Choir Apprentice Choir, the San Diego State University Chamber Choir, the San Diego Youth Symphony, Voices of Our City Chorus, Project [BLANK], Sinfónica Juvenil de Tijuana, and more!