Montreal Symphony House, Concert hall at Place des Arts, Montreal, Canada
Montreal Symphony House is a concert hall and opera house at Place des Arts in Montreal, Canada, with around 2,100 seats and a warm wood interior. The acoustics were designed from the ground up for orchestral music, delivering a clear and balanced sound throughout the room.
The hall opened in September 2011 with a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony conducted by Kent Nagano, becoming the home of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. Before that, the orchestra performed in the nearby Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, which was not built with orchestral sound in mind.
The hall is shared by several Montreal ensembles: the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which holds it 240 days a year, plus the Metropolitan Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy and I Musici de Montréal. The Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique honours Pierre Béique, the orchestra's general manager from 1937 to 1970, and was funded by Jacqueline Desmarais in memory of her husband Paul.
The hall is at the corner of de Maisonneuve Boulevard West and Saint-Urbain Street, on the northeastern esplanade of Place des Arts. It is within walking distance of the Place-des-Arts and Berri-UQAM metro stations. The Montreal Symphony Orchestra reserves the hall for 240 days a year, so check the schedule for public concerts on other days.
The hall is home to the Grand Orgue Pierre-Béique, a pipe organ with 6,489 pipes spread across 83 stops. The instrument is one of the largest of its kind in North America and was custom-built for the room, so its dimensions fit the space exactly.
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