Continued

The overall design of the Globe-News hall is an evolution of a smaller scale design we developed for the Pepsico Recital Hall at Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) where the entire room was a fixed structure with inner and outer rooms. In this design, adjustable acoustics control reverberation and openings in the inner room to the outer room, coupled the two spaces acoustically. Still, the Globe-News Center orchestra shell differs from concert hall shapers of some of our previous designs—Tokyo International Forum, Bass Hall, Ft. Worth, Tex., and Gaylord Hall in Oklahoma City. The hard cap to close off the absorptive stage house in these designs was an element that moved into position from an upstage location and had separate wall towers that stage hands moved into place from an off-stage storage location. The shaper in both Bass Hall and Gaylord Hall required the stage to be struck, and the ceiling was lifted up from winch points on the downstage edge.

The Globe News shell is a single unit construction consisting of an industrial materials mover, rolling gantry crane from which is suspended the shell hard cap and lower ceiling and walls as well. The hard cap ceiling is attached to the top side of the truss between the cranes and consists of a thick plywood layer. The lower, articulated shell consists of thick MDO plywood with a finish stain constructed in three segmented arches with openings in between each segment. This is the same material used in the inner room of the audience chamber. The entire assembly lives in an upstage garage. Instead of taking a crew of three or four up to an hour, moving the shell into place becomes a motorized operation managed with a hand-held remote as small as an iPOD and takes just two to four minutes.

The shell is also a room within a room. The inner wood shell has openings at the gaps between the three arches to the outer room which is bordered by the hard cap shaper ceiling and the side walls of the side stage wings. The cap ceiling intersects the concrete fly galleries over the side wings, thus completing the acoustical reflective outer room. The inner room, both in the stage and in the house, reflects mid- and high-frequency sound. More of the low frequency energy is allowed to pass through to the outer room where it is reflected back into the house later in time (without too much loss in energy) to create a low frequency balance of sound often referred to as "warmth."

The outer room in the house has adjustable acoustic systems to tune the sound of the various ensembles and to dampen the hall for amplified programming. The adjustable systems consist of mid- and high-frequency absorptive velour curtains and mid- to low- frequency absorptive fiberglass sliding panels. When the panels are compacted, this system is fully reflective. When the panel is opened, the system is fully absorptive.

Tuning the room
For classical symphonic programming, the reverberation time can be as high as 2.5 seconds unoccupied and 2.2 seconds with full audience. For amplified programming, with the adjustable acoustic systems in place, the reverberation time is lowered to 1.4 seconds occupied. The shape of the reverberation time curves shows a flattening out in the low frequency region when the adjustable acoustic systems are in place allowing for better room control and a tight bass sound for amplified, pop performances.

The pre-opening acoustic check of the hall included a week-long effort by JH staff to tune the room for various ensembles.  This meant attending rehearsals of various groups such as the Amarillo Symphony, Civic Choral Society, local pop groups, opera singers, the Harrington String Quartet, etc. We listened to these ensembles from various seats in the hall and worked with the music directors to get a sense of how the music sounded in the hall. We then used the adjustable acoustic systems to either dampen the sound or liven it, depending on the need. We also determined the best on-stage location for the performers. Opera singers in particular want to find the stage "sweet spot." During the week-long tuning, the Globe-News Center took the opportunity to invite over 500 local university and high school students to attend a presentation I gave on the acoustics of the hall. (This actually was the first event with people in the hall. It was a great success and fun as well). The presentation's tie-in with the Globe-News Gilliland Education Center, while not explicit, made perfect sense. The Education Center is a rehearsal hall, acoustically isolated from the rest of the facility that can accommodate the Amarillo Orchestra and serve as a classroom for distance learning as well.

The tuning week culminated in a hard-hat full-house concert for the construction workers and their spouses, donors, founders, and design team members. JaffeHolden prepared this event, emceeing, and orchestrating the on-stage appearances by those artists who had helped us tune the room during the week, this time demonstrating the flexibility of the hall with the different adjustable acoustic systems in place. When the shell was moved into place the audience was advised that it was the only one of its kind in the world and made entirely in the state of Texas, they erupted into sustained applause.

The acoustic success of the Globe-News Center hall is borne out by the reviews of the first Amarillo Symphony concert where music critic Chip Chandler stated, "The first true highlight of the concert came with Copland's "Fanfare," featuring only the orchestra's brass and percussion sections. It's the kind of piece you want to enjoy with your eyes closed, letting the sound wash over you and in the orchestra's rendition, with the new acoustic clarity, that's just what was required. It was gorgeous, simply gorgeous."

Creating a multi-use hall with a "music first" aesthetic is a viable option for new performing arts centers. The costs and space involved in the storage of the shell must be balanced against the savings in operating labor and scenic space-saving potential, as well as the benefits of a no-compromise music performance space. For the city of Amarillo, who raised the $36 million for the Globe-News Center primarily from private donations, the effort and expense seems to have been worth it.