{"id":200,"date":"2006-11-21T13:50:12","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T13:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/11\/21\/menuhin-hall\/"},"modified":"2006-11-21T13:54:37","modified_gmt":"2006-11-21T13:54:37","slug":"menuhin-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/11\/21\/menuhin-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"Menuhin Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"259\" src=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/sitebuilder\/images\/MenuhinExterior3-600x450.jpg\" width=\"438\" \/>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">This Saturday, the Surrey Mozart Players and I had the privilege of being one of the first orchestras to perform in the nearly brand-new Menuhin Hall, a beautiful 300-seat concert hall that just opened its doors in January. It\u2019s always nice to test drive a car you can\u2019t really afford, and this weekend was no exception.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The orchestra\u2019s regular venue is the Electric Theatre in <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Guildford<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">, which has a lot going for it, including a lovely bar, restaurant and patio area, nice backstage amenities and a performing space that feels both intimate and spacious. What it doesn\u2019t have is particularly nice acoustics. I often feel that when people build \u201cmulti-purpose\u201d venues that will house spoken-word theatre, music and miscellaneous events, what they mean is that they will build a spoken-word theatre and let others use it, but that the acoustics will be incredibly hostile to acoustic music.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 452px; height: 329px\" height=\"329\" src=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/sitebuilder\/images\/MenuhinInterior-600x450.jpg\" width=\"452\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\">No such worries at the <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Menuhin<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Hall-<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\"> musicians can hear each other with effortless clarity on stage, and from the audience, listeners can hear an incredible depth of detail. It\u2019s not actually the most flattering space- there is no ubershlage of reverb to coat the sound and hide our sins, but it is a venue in which you can hear every player onstage from the audience. I think it would be perfect for solo piano recitals, lieder and chamber music.<br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 460px; height: 387px\" height=\"387\" src=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/sitebuilder\/images\/MenuhinInterior4-600x450.jpg\" width=\"460\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">It feels smaller than its 300 seats, and the Haydn 99 we played was probably about as big an orchestra as you\u2019d want in there- I think a Beethoven 5 would be pushing its sonic capacity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Among the first class facilities are two fantastic pianos- a beautiful Steinway and a stunning Fazioli which Bobby Chen used for the Mozart A Major. Just before our rehearsal a team from Sony were trying out the space and the pianos, so maybe we\u2019ll be hearing some interesting recording projects coming out of there soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">One thing about this building that <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">\u00a0I really appreciated about it was the air of serenity within the hall- it feels like a place as suitable for meditation as for performance, something I\u2019m sure Menuhin would have approved of. A great hall can be a place of healing, not just an entertainment veunue- audiences come both for the music, but also for contmplation and relaease from their everyday concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Although it\u2019s sat right on the side of the M25, one of the busiest highways in the world, the setting feels far removed from the madness of <\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">London<\/span><span lang=\"EN-GB\">. I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll be doing a brisk trade in coming years, and I know the SMP look forward to returning soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\" \/><span lang=\"EN-GB\">c. 2006 Kenneth Woods<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2006\/11\/21\/menuhin-hall\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 This Saturday, the Surrey Mozart Players and I had the privilege of being one of the first orchestras to perform in the nearly brand-new Menuhin Hall, a beautiful 300-seat concert hall that just opened its doors in January. It\u2019s always nice to test drive a car you can\u2019t really afford, and this weekend was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}