Walt Disney Concert Hall
Encyclopedia
The Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 is the fourth hall of the Los Angeles Music Center
Los Angeles Music Center
The Music Center is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation. Located in downtown Los Angeles, the Music Center is home to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, Mark Taper Forum and Walt Disney Concert Hall...

. Bounded by Hope Street, Grand Avenue, 1st and 2nd Streets, it seats 2,265 people and serves (among other purposes) as the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Los Angeles Philharmonic
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California, United States. It has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September...

 orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale
Los Angeles Master Chorale
The Los Angeles Master Chorale is a professional chorus in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1964 by Roger Wagner to be one of the three original resident companies of the Music Center of Los Angeles County...

.

Lillian Disney
Lillian Disney
Lillian Disney was the wife of Walt Disney. She was married to him from 1925 until his death in 1966.-Early years:...

 made an initial gift in 1987 to build a performance venue as a gift to the people of Los Angeles and a tribute to Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

's devotion to the arts and to the city. The Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...

-designed building opened on October 24, 2003. Both the architecture by Frank Gehry
Frank Gehry
Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...

 and the acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

 of the concert hall (designed by Yasuhisa Toyota
Yasuhisa Toyota
is an acoustician who has been chief acoustician for over 50 projects worldwide, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Bard College Performing Arts Center in New York, and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. He is the company director and U.S...

) were praised in contrast to its predecessor, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is one of the halls in the Los Angeles Music Center . The Music Center's other halls include the Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.The Pavilion has 3,197 seats spread over four tiers, with chandeliers, wide curving stairways and rich décor...

.

Construction

The project was launched in 1992, when Lillian Disney
Lillian Disney
Lillian Disney was the wife of Walt Disney. She was married to him from 1925 until his death in 1966.-Early years:...

, widow of Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

, donated $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

50 million. Frank Gehry delivered completed designs in 1991. Construction of the underground parking garage began in 1992 and was completed in 1996. The garage cost had been $110 million, and was paid for by Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County, California
Los Angeles County is a county in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 9,818,605, making it the most populous county in the United States. Los Angeles County alone is more populous than 42 individual U.S. states...

, which sold bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

 to provide the garage under the site of the planned hall. Construction of the concert hall itself stalled from 1994 to 1996 due to lack of fundraising. Additional funds were required since the construction cost of the final project far exceeded the original budget. Plans were revised, and in a cost saving move the originally designed stone exterior was replaced with a less costly metal skin. The needed fundraising restarted in earnest in 1996—after the real estate depression passed—headed up by Eli Broad
Eli Broad
Eli Broad is an American businessman from Detroit, Michigan who resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:An only child, Broad was born in the Bronx to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a housepainter, his mother was a dressmaker. His family moved to Detroit when he...

 and then-mayor
Mayor of Los Angeles, California
The mayor of Los Angeles is the chief executive officer of the city. He is elected for a four-year term and limited to serving no more than two terms. Under the California Constitution, all judicial, school, county, and city offices, including those of chartered cities, are nonpartisan...

 Richard Riordan
Richard Riordan
Richard J. Riordan is a Republican politician from California, U.S.A. who served as the California Secretary for Education from 2003–2005 and as the 39th Mayor of Los Angeles, California from 1993–2001...

 and groundbreaking for the hall was held in December 1999. Delay in the project completion caused many financial problems for the county of LA. The city expected to repay the garage debts by revenue coming from the Disney Hall parking users.

Upon completion in 2003, the project had cost an estimated $274 million, including the parking garage which had solely cost $110 million. The remainder of the total cost was paid by private donations, of which the Disney family's contribution was estimated to $84.5 million with another $25 million from The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

. By comparison, the three existing halls of the Music Center cost $35 million in the 1960s (about $190 million in today's dollars).

Acoustics

As construction finished in the spring of 2003, the Philharmonic postponed its grand opening until the fall and used the summer to let the orchestra and Master Chorale adjust to the new hall. Performers and critics agree that this extra time taken was well worth it by the time the hall opened to the public. During the summer rehearsals a few hundred VIPs were invited to sit in including donors, board members and journalists. Writing about these rehearsals, L.A. Times music critic, Mark Swed wrote the following account:

The hall met with lauded approval from nearly all of its listeners, including its performers. In an interview with PBS, Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...

, Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, said, "The sound, of course, was my greatest concern, but now I am totally happy, and so is the orchestra," and later said, "Everyone can now hear what the L.A. Phil is supposed to sound like." This remains one of the most successful grand openings of a concert hall in American history.

The walls and ceiling of the hall are finished with Douglas-fir
Douglas-fir
Douglas-fir is one of the English common names for evergreen coniferous trees of the genus Pseudotsuga in the family Pinaceae. Other common names include Douglas tree, and Oregon pine. There are five species, two in western North America, one in Mexico, and two in eastern Asia...

 while the floor is finished with oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

. The Hall's reverberation time is approximately 2.2 seconds unoccupied and 2.0 seconds occupied.

Reflection problems

After the construction, modifications were made to the Founders Room exterior; while most of the building's exterior was designed with stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....

 given a matte finish, the Founders Room and Children's Amphitheater were designed with highly polished mirror-like panels. The reflective qualities of the surface were amplified by the concave sections of the Founders Room walls. Some residents of the neighboring condominiums suffered glare caused by sunlight that was reflected off these surfaces and concentrated in a manner similar to a parabolic mirror. The resulting heat made some rooms of nearby condominiums unbearably warm, caused the air-conditioning costs of these residents to skyrocket and created hot spots on adjacent sidewalks of as much as 60 °C (140 °F). After complaints from neighboring buildings and residents, the owners asked Gehry Partners to come up with a solution. Their response was a computer analysis of the building's surfaces identifying the offending panels. In 2005 these were dulled by lightly sanding the panels to eliminate unwanted glare.

Concert organ

The design of the hall included a large concert organ
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, completed in 2004, which was used in a special concert for the July 2004 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists
American Guild of Organists
The American Guild of Organists, or AGO, is a national organization of academic, church, and concert organists in the U.S., headquartered in The Interchurch Center in New York City. It was founded in 1896 as both an educational and service organization...

. The organ had its public debut in a non-subscription recital
Organ recital
An organ recital is a concert at which music specially written for the organ is played.The music played at such recitals was typically written for pipe organ, which includes church organs, and symphonic organs...

 performed by Frederick Swann
Frederick Swann
Frederick L. Swann is a prominent American church and concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor, and former president of the American Guild of Organists . During his career spanning more than a half-century, he has performed on most of the well-known pipe organs in the world and made...

 on September 30, 2004, and its first public performance with the Philharmonic two days later in a concert featuring Todd Wilson.

The organ's facade was designed by architect Frank Gehry in consultation with organ consultant and sound designer Manuel Rosales. Gehry wanted a distinctive, unique design for the organ. He would submit design concepts to Rosales, who would then provide feedback. Many of Gehry's early designs were fanciful, but impractical: Rosales said in an interview with Timothy Mangan of The Orange County Register
The Orange County Register
The Orange County Register is a daily newspaper published in Santa Ana, California. The Register is the flagship publication of Freedom Communications, Inc., which publishes 28 daily newspapers, 23 weekly newspapers, Coast magazine, and several related Internet sites.The Register is notable for its...

, "His [Gehry's] earliest input would have created very bizarre musical results in the organ. Just as a taste, some of them would have had the console
Organ console
thumb|right|250px|The console of the [[Wanamaker Organ]] in the Macy's department store in [[Philadelphia]], featuring six manuals and colour-coded stop tabs....

 at the top and pipes upside down. There was another in which the pipes were in layers of arrays like fans. Very fascinating. Couldn't be built. The pipes would have had to be made out of materials that wouldn't work for pipes. We had our moments where we realized we were not going anywhere. As the design became more practical for me, it also became more boring for him." Then, Gehry came up with the curved wooden pipe concept, "like a logjam kind of thing," says Rosales, "turned sideways." This design turned out to be musically viable.

The organ was built by the German organ builder, Caspar Glatter-Götz, under the tonal direction and voicing of Manuel Rosales. It has an attached console
Organ console
thumb|right|250px|The console of the [[Wanamaker Organ]] in the Macy's department store in [[Philadelphia]], featuring six manuals and colour-coded stop tabs....

 built into the base of the instrument from which the pipes of the Positive, Great, and Swell manuals are playable by direct mechanical, or "tracker" key action
Tracker action
Tracker action is a term used in reference to pipe organs and steam calliopes to indicate a mechanical linkage between keys or pedals pressed by the organist and the valve that allows air to flow into pipe of the corresponding note...

, with the rest playing by electric key action; this console somewhat resembles North-German Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 organs, and has a closed-circuit television monitor set into the music desk. It is also equipped with a detached, movable console, which can be moved about as easily as a grand piano, and plugged in at any of four positions on the stage, this console has terraced, curved "amphitheatre"-style stop-jambs resembling those of French Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....

 organs, and is built with a low profile, with the music desk entirely above the top of the console, for the sake of clear sight lines to the conductor. From the detached console, all ranks play by electric key and stop action.

In all, there are 72 stops, 109 ranks, and 6,125 pipes; pipes range in size from a few centimeters/inches to the longest being 9.75m (32 feet) (which has a frequency of 16 hertz).

The organ is a gift to the County of Los Angeles from Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. is the Toyota sales, marketing, and distribution subsidiary devoted to the U.S. market. Founded in 1957 in California, TMS currently employs more than 6,500 people...

 (the U.S. sales, marketing, service, and distribution arm of Toyota Motor Corporation
Toyota Motor Corporation
, , , commonly known simply as Toyota and abbreviated as TMC, is a multinational automaker headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2010, Toyota Motor Corporation employed 317,734 people worldwide, and was the world's largest automobile manufacturer by production.The company was founded by...

).

Pop culture

  • The Hall was spoofed in The Simpsons
    The Simpsons
    The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...

    episode "The Seven-Beer Snitch
    The Seven-Beer Snitch
    "The Seven-Beer Snitch" is the fourteenth episode of The Simpsons sixteenth season, first aired on April 3, 2005 in the United States.-Plot:...

    "; Gehry voiced himself in the episode where the town of Springfield had him design a new Concert Hall for the town. The Concert Hall was then transformed into a jail by Mr. Burns. The character Snake eventually escapes from the prison while saying, "No Frank Gehry-designed prison can hold me!"
  • The first ever movie premiere at the concert hall was in 2003, when The Matrix Revolutions
    The Matrix Revolutions
    The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American science fiction film and the third installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film was released six months following The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5,...

    held its world premiere.
  • The Hall is featured in the video game Midnight Club: Los Angeles
    Midnight Club: Los Angeles
    Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the fourth video game in the Midnight Club series of racing video games, not including Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition Remix. It was officially announced for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on January 11, 2008 by Rockstar Games. The game was developed by Rockstar San Diego...

    .
  • In the opening moments of "Day 6
    24 (season 6)
    Season Six, also known as Day 6, of the television series 24 premiered in the United States on Sunday, January 14, 2007, the UK on January 21, 2007 and in Australia on January 30, 2007.The season's storyline began and ended at 6:00 a.m...

    " of 24
    24 (TV series)
    24 is an American television series produced for the Fox Network and syndicated worldwide, starring Kiefer Sutherland as Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer. Each 24-episode season covers 24 hours in the life of Bauer, using the real time method of narration...

    , a suicide bomber destroyed a bus in the vicinity of the Concert Hall.
  • The Concert Hall held Ellen DeGeneres
    Ellen DeGeneres
    Ellen Lee DeGeneres is an American stand-up comedienne, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was also a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season....

     co-hosting for American Idol
    American Idol
    American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

    during the special week of Idol Gives Back. Rascal Flatts
    Rascal Flatts
    Rascal Flatts is an American country music band that originated in Columbus, Ohio, United States of America. Since its inception, Rascal Flatts has been composed of three members: Gary LeVox , Jay DeMarcus and Joe Don Rooney...

    , Kelly Clarkson
    Kelly Clarkson
    Kelly Brianne Clarkson is an American pop rock singer-songwriter and actress. Clarkson came into prominence after becoming the winner of the inaugural season of the television series American Idol in 2002 and would later become the runner-up in the television special World Idol in 2003.In 2003,...

    , and Il Divo
    Il Divo
    Il Divo is a multinational operatic pop vocal group created by music manager, executive, and reality TV star Simon Cowell. Formed in the United Kingdom, they are also signed to Cowell's record label, Syco Music...

     performed here.
  • This building was also used in the Iron Man
    Iron Man (film)
    Iron Man is a 2008 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. Directed by Jon Favreau, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, an industrialist and master engineer who builds a powered exoskeleton and becomes the technologically advanced superhero, Iron...

    (2008 release) movie briefly for a party for Stark Industries.
  • The finale of the 2008 movie Get Smart
    Get Smart (film)
    Get Smart is a 2008 American spy-fi comedy film based on Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's 1960s spy parody television series of the same name. The film stars Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99...

    was filmed at the Concert Hall.
  • In the promotion picture for the television series Shark
    Shark (TV series)
    Shark is an American legal drama created by Ian Biederman that originally aired on CBS from September 21, 2006 to May 20, 2008. The series stars James Woods.-Synopsis:...

    , the cast is standing in front of the Concert Hall.
  • In the original pilot of the US TV remake of Life On Mars
    Life on Mars (U.S. TV series)
    Life on Mars was a science fiction crime drama television series which originally aired on ABC from October 9, 2008 to April 1, 2009. It is an adaptation of the BAFTA-winning original UK series of the same name produced by the BBC...

    , the Hall features prominently in the sequence where Sam travels back to 1972. It is an emblem of the ultra-modern landscape that Sam is about to leave behind.
  • On Everyday Italian
    Everyday Italian
    Everyday Italian is a Food Network show hosted by Giada De Laurentiis. In the show, De Laurentiis focuses for her viewers on traditional Italian cuisine with an American flair, such as herb-crusted lamb and chocolate-ricotta pie.-Popularity:...

    , Giada De Laurentiis
    Giada De Laurentiis
    Giada Pamela De Laurentiis is an Italian American chef, writer, television personality, and the host of the current Food Network program Giada at Home. She also appears regularly as a contributor and guest co-host on NBC's Today...

     was preparing foods for her family and friends before she went there.
  • "One Hour", a 3rd season episode of NUMB3RS
    NUMB3RS
    Numb3rs is an American television drama which premiered on CBS on January 23, 2005, and concluded on March 12, 2010. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes , who helps Don solve crimes...

    , extensively features the concert hall. The action begins outside the hall, and after a long series of events around town, the FBI winds up going inside the hall in order to rescue a young boy from his captors.
  • It is heavily used and an important building in the 2009 film, The Soloist
    The Soloist
    The Soloist is a 2009 American/French/British drama film directed by Joe Wright, and starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. The screenplay by Susannah Grant is based on the book, The Soloist by Steve Lopez...

    .
  • Filming was done on location at the Concert Hall for a fictional Boomkat
    Boomkat
    Boomkat is an electronic and pop music duo, with brother-and-sister Kellin and Taryn Manning. The group released their debut album Boomkatalog.One in 2003, and their second album A Million Trillion Stars in 2009...

     music video in the CW
    The CW Television Network
    The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...

    's Melrose Place
    Melrose Place (2009 TV series)
    Melrose Place is an American television series broadcast on The CW Television Network from September 8, 2009 to April 13, 2010. The fifth series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise, it is an updated version of the 1990s Fox prime time drama of the same name, featuring a group of young adults...

    .
  • The ABC show "Brothers and Sisters" often shows an exterior shot of Senator Robert McCallister's office that includes the concert hall. Also, Kitty proposed to Robert at a fund raiser held at the hall.
  • It was featured in the 2007 film, Alvin and the Chipmunks
    Alvin and the Chipmunks (film)
    Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 2007 comedy film directed by Tim Hill. Based on the animated series of the same name, the film stars Jason Lee, David Cross, and Cameron Richardson with the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox and...

    .

Restaurant

The concert hall houses celebrity chef Joachim Splichal
Joachim Splichal
Joachim Splichal is a celebrity chef based in Los Angeles, California. In 1991 he was declared “Best California Chef” by the James Beard Foundation. Four years later in 1995 he was inducted into their “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America"...

's landmark fine dining restaurant Patina designed by Belzberg Architects. Patina serves French
French cuisine
French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...

 and California cuisine
California Cuisine
California cuisine is a style of cuisine marked by an interest in fusion cuisine and in the use of freshly prepared local ingredients.The food is typically prepared with strong attention to presentation...

.

See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK