“The Cardinal” Sings of an Au Courant Concert Hall

Stanford Lively Arts, curating experiences that engage artists’ and audiences’ imagination, creativity, and sense of adventure, celebrated the groundbreaking of its future home on Tuesday morning. Bing Concert Hall, a $111.9 million project funded by Helen and Peter Bing, will be an 844-seat concert hall bringing visiting artists from the world of classical, jazz, world music and multimedia, and the university’s resident ensembles, together under one spacious roof.

A design team led by Polshek Partnership Architects and Fisher Dachs Associates, with acoustic design by Yasuhisa Toyota, is scheduled to have the hall completed in the summer of 2012, so you can expect its groundbreaking performances to commence in January 2013. The hall will be located adjacent to the Frost Amphitheater and will face the Cantor Arts Center at the east end of Stanford’s Museum Way.

The 112,000-square-foot space, with its expansive stage and 47-foot-high ceilings, will allow the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Symphonic Chorus, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and musicians associated with the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics to take center stage. Having an intimate home of their own, Stanford Lively Arts’ students and staff will be able to plan more long-term projects and festival formats.

The wind of artistic freedom is sure to blow Bing Concert Hall among Stanford’s highly respected business, law, medicine, and engineering structures.