Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Symphony Hall
	Symphony Hall platform, organ and movable acoustic canopy
Location	Broad Street, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Coordinates	52°28′43″N 1°54′38″W / 52.47861°N 1.91056°W
Owner	Performances Birmingham Limited
Type	Concert hall
Capacity	2,262
Construction
Opened	1991
Construction cost	£30 million
Architect	Percy Thomas Partnership; Renton Howard Wood Levin
Website
	www.thsh.co.uk

Symphony Hall is a 2,262 seat concert venue in Birmingham, England. It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 June 1991,^[1] although it had been in use since 15 April 1991. It is home to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and hosts around 270 events a year. It was completed at a cost of £30 million.^[2] The hall's interior is modelled on the Musikverein in Vienna and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.^[3] The venue, managed alongside Town Hall, presents a programme of jazz, world, folk, rock, pop and classical concerts, organ recitals, spoken word, dance, comedy, educational and community performances, and is also used for conferences and business events as part of the International Convention Centre.

In 2016 the Concert Hall Acoustics expert Leo Beranek ranked Symphony Hall as having the finest acoustics in the United Kingdom, and the seventh best in the world.^[4] Proof of these fine acoustics is that a pre-opening acoustic test demonstrated that if a pin was dropped on stage, the sound could be heard from anywhere in the hall.^[5]

^ Taylor, Charles Alfred (1992). "Reflections, Reverberations, and Recitals". Exploring Music: The Science and Technology of Tones and Tunes. CRC Press. pp. 232–4. ISBN 0-7503-0213-5.
^ John Tribe (1999). The Economics of Leisure and Tourism. Elsevier. ISBN 0-7506-4232-7.
^ Sallie Westwood; John M. Williams (1997). Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs, Memory. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-14429-9.
^ Lubin, Gus (5 October 2016). "The 10 best-sounding concert halls in the world". Business Insider. Business Insider Inc. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
^ "Page\Park Architects has submitted plans for a revamp of Birmingham Symphony Hall". Architects Journal. Symphony Hall, Birmingham. 29 November 2018.

[cat-1] Taylor, Charles Alfred (1992). "Reflections, Reverberations, and Recitals". Exploring Music: The Science and Technology of Tones and Tunes. CRC Press. pp. 232–4. ISBN 0-7503-0213-5.

[2] John Tribe (1999). The Economics of Leisure and Tourism. Elsevier. ISBN 0-7506-4232-7.

[3] Sallie Westwood; John M. Williams (1997). Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs, Memory. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-14429-9.

[4] Lubin, Gus (5 October 2016). "The 10 best-sounding concert halls in the world". Business Insider. Business Insider Inc. Retrieved 15 October 2017.

[5] "Page\Park Architects has submitted plans for a revamp of Birmingham Symphony Hall". Architects Journal. Symphony Hall, Birmingham. 29 November 2018.

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