Benaroya Hall

"Seattle is the cultural dustbin of the nation." Those horrifying words, allegedly spoken in disgust by Sir Thomas Beecham, one of the great British conductors of the twentieth century, after a year of conducting the Seattle Symphony in the early 1940's, left Seattle traumatized and culturally defensive for decades to come.

Those of us who grew up around these parts often saw ourselves as living in an isolated frontier town, less scorned than totally unknown by the rest of the nation. Only gradually have we begun taking heart from high rankings in "best cities" polls, and from frequent laudatory articles in the New York Times. (Gawrsh, that's a real big city newspaper, too!) We still may feel inferior to older cities with more established cultural traditions, such as San Francisco, Cleveland, Philadelphia -- but we sense that the gap with many of these towns is closing, if not already closed.

A major step forward from our cultural adolescence was the construction of Benaroya Hall, whose tenth anniversary we celebrate this month. Until 1998, the Seattle Symphony performed in the Seattle Opera House (now remodeled as McCaw Hall), a venue located out at the Seattle Center (the old 1962 World's Fair grounds) that it shared with the local opera and ballet companies. Benaroya Hall, built specifically for the symphony, was constructed in the center of downtown, across the street from the then recently-built Seattle Art Museum. Re-location of those two institutions accelerated the development of downtown Seattle as a residential, entertainment and dining center, an enjoyable and safe area to be enjoyed in the evening as well as during the day.

Benaroya Hall has an audience capacity of 2,500 in its main auditorium, and 500 in a smaller performance hall. The acoustics are excellent. The symphony plays virtually nightly, from September through June, to full houses in the main auditorium.

Pride in one's city, like pride in one's country, can be either silly and boosterish, or constructive and worthwhile. Benaroya Hall provides a focus for the best sort of civic pride, a city's pride in the accomplishments of its artistic community, and in its own willingness and ability to support the arts, both financially and by attendance.

So happy birthday, Benaroya Hall.

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Sir Thomas left Seattle humiliated, and so it's nice to learn that he in turn had his own bad moments:

The story is told of how, around 1950, Beecham met a lady whom he recognised but whose name he couldn't remember. After some preliminaries about the weather, and desperately racking his memory, he asked how she was.

"Oh, very well, but my brother has been rather ill lately."

"Ah, yes, your brother. I'm sorry to hear that. And, er, what is your brother doing at the moment?"

"Well... he's still  King", replied Princess Mary.

--Wikipedia