Thirty years ago, I first landed in Salt Lake City to audition for the Utah Symphony, a 22-year-old violinist embarrassingly oblivious of anything about Salt Lake City other than that it had a great orchestra and was home of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Two things took my breath away that first visit, their impression seared into my memory — the magnificence of the mountains and the transcendent beauty of Abravanel Hall. I remember vividly walking out onto the Abravanel Hall stage for the first time, so distracted by the opulent chandeliers and the warmth of the gold adorning the hall’s tiers, that I almost forgot how nervous I was for my first-ever audition for a major orchestra. Somehow the hall sounded even better than it looked — rich, warm, round and balanced.
I didn’t win that first audition, but that experience playing in Abravanel Hall inspired me to try again, and I was fortunate enough to win an audition a year later. I have now performed thousands of concerts in Abravanel Hall over my 28 years in the Symphony, and its aesthetic and acoustic beauty are as startling to me now as they were 30 years ago. At this point in my career, I have played in hundreds of halls across the United States, South America, Asia and Europe. Not once did I think, “I wish this was our hall.”
When I first heard rumors of plans to demolish Abravanel Hall, I brushed it off as a preposterous absurdity. Who would wish to tear down one of the most beloved buildings in Utah, a building enabled and paid for by county residents through a ballot initiative, uniquely as beautiful visually as sonically? It seems that the direction Abravanel points is inconvenient, metaphorically the crooked teeth in what would otherwise be a slick, straight line of new development. All should not be at the mercy of convenience and expediency, and won’t more straight lines just lead to more walls, just in another direction? After all, much great art is the antithesis of expedience. Da Vinci’s 16 years of work on the “Mona Lisa” springs to mind, or Brahms waiting more than four decades to write his first symphony.
From what I’ve heard, the entities pushing for Abravanel Hall’s demolition have three main points: The hall is inconveniently positioned; the hall is too expensive to renovate and a new hall would be less expensive; and with new technology it will be easy to create a hall as beautiful and acoustically excellent as Abravanel Hall.
I would like to address each of these.
The Hall’s positioning was purposeful, pointing towards the Tabernacle where the Symphony previously played, the open plaza an opportunity to both admire Temple Square and the Hall itself. The plaza and the hall could have a great role as open space and as a buffer to the exciting new sports and entertainment blocks of SEG’s development.
Regarding the renovation of Abravanel and its expenses being more than a new build, this is incorrect. Recent new builds of concert halls in Los Angeles, Kansas City and Hamburg cost between $500 million and $1.1 billion, adjusted for today’s dollars, far dwarfing the supposed $216 million dollars it would take to renovate Abravanel. (About 40% of the this estimate is actually for new additions, and much else is for elective changes.) Despite that expense and the use of the latest technology, not all of these halls are celebrated for their acoustics. As any great violin maker can tell you, a great result is not guaranteed even with the best wood and the greatest skill. Not every Stradivarius sounds great, just as modern technology and money cannot guarantee a great concert hall.
Lastly, I know that creating the Sports, Entertainment, Culture and Convention District with as little negative environmental impact as possible is a top priority for city and county leadership as well as SEG. Concrete is a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, and its demolition has the potential for serious negative impact on air quality. The most sustainable building is one that already exists.
I am grateful to the county and the city, as well as their wise voters, for giving me such a wonderful life here in Utah, and especially such a sublime hall to call a workplace. I’m also grateful to SEG, not only for bringing in a hockey team (as a MN boy I’m stoked!) and keeping the Jazz here, but for investing in our city and in our future. Abravanel Hall will only add to its luster.
(Photo courtesy of David Porter) David Porter
David Porter is a violinist with the Utah Symphony and active pedagogue and chamber musician. He is the founder of MOTUS After Dark and was a founder of the Intermezzo Chamber Music Series.
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