concert halls

Quarries and ravines, repurposed industrial facilities and world-class auditoriums: music occupies an incredibly diverse range of spaces in Finland. How are these needs shifting with technological and social changes?

In recent years, concert hall research has been raised to a new level with a method developed at Aalto University in Finland. This enables the authentic auditing of concert hall acoustics in a laboratory.

The wooden architecture of the new Sibelius Hall in Lahti provided both traditional and modern support to the Lahti Symphony’s performance of Sibelius’ Finlandia at the hall’s debut on March 9th [2000].The hall’s intriguing combination of proven and new should also help efforts to export Finnish wood-construction expertise and design. Externally, the hall was almost completed in time for the inaugural concert, but it will still take months to “tune” the acoustics. The New York firm Artec and its acoustics team want to polish the hall's timbre to its utmost.

Despite repeated and persistent efforts spanning a century, Helsinki has never had a true orchestral concert hall until this year. The new Music Centre, opening in August 2011, is the first ever venue in Finland's capital city specifically designed and intended for the performing of symphonic music.