Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, Performing arts complex in downtown Jacksonville, United States.
The Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts is a multi-story building on Jacksonville's downtown riverfront, its facade marked by a light grey upper panel, a band of deep blue glass panes in white frames, and raised capital letters reading TIMES-UNION CENTER above recessed glass entrance doors. Inside, the former Civic Auditorium was gutted and divided into three venues: the Moran Theater, the Jacoby Symphony Hall and the Terry Theater.
Commissioned in 1955, the Civic Auditorium opened on September 16, 1962, with a performance by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, replacing the Duval County Armory. After the venue gained a poor reputation for acoustics, Mayor Ed Austin's 1993 River City Renaissance Plan funded its renovation, begun in 1995. Architects gutted the auditorium and divided it into three halls; it reopened on February 8, 1997, with a performance by the FSCJ Artist Series.
The center is home to the Jacksonville Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra and the FSCJ Artist Series. Since 2006 the Moran Theater has hosted Extravaganza, an annual talent showcase by students of Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. The lobby holds a marble column from the 1913 Barnett National Bank Building and art from the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville.
The center stands along the St. Johns River on the downtown riverbank, where the site was prepared by bulkheading the shoreline and adding fill dirt. The three venues sit inside one building, so check which hall your event uses before arriving. The lobby holds a marble column from the 1913 Barnett National Bank Building and art from the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville.
The Jacoby Symphony Hall is a shoebox-shaped room modeled on the Wiener Musikverein in Vienna, with no stage curtains, orchestra pit, fly space or backstage wings. Its Bryan Concert organ is a rebuilt Casavant instrument, not an original antique.
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