“The renovated Robinson Center, featuring a brand-new add-on conference facility, including a grand ballroom, and a totally rebuilt performance space, emerged Thursday at an unveiling by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau,” writes Eric E. Harrison in Friday’s (11/11) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock). “The $70 million project, funded by a rededicated advertising and promotion tax, took a little over two years but was completed on time and on budget.… The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will inaugurate both spaces over the next 10 days, starting Saturday in the ballroom with its annual Opus Ball and proceeding Nov. 19-20 … with a pair of Masterworks concerts. The concerts will feature four musical pieces designed to show off the hall’s new acoustics.… Responsible for the acoustic design is Mark Holden, chairman and lead acoustic designer at Norwalk, Conn.-based Jaffe Holden Acoustics.… The goal: create a multiuse space in which the acoustics could comfortably shift according to need.… The real test will come when the orchestra gets onto the stage, at which point, ‘we actually “tune” the hall,’ said Arkansas Symphony Music Director Philip Mann, who has been involved with the acoustical aspects from the beginning.”
Posted November 14, 2016
