Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication Dean Robert Bucker has invited faculty and staff to attend a second free concert at the soon-to-be open Valley Performing Arts Center. The concerts provide an opportunity for acoustic and media system consultants to “beta test” the new venue’s sound.
The concert will feature the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra on Monday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. Complimentary tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis to faculty and staff beginning on Oct. 19 at 10 a.m. at the A.S. Ticket Office. Tickets must be picked up in-person with a CSUN I.D. Each ticketholder can bring one guest.
The 166,000-square foot Valley Performing Arts Center will officially open its doors on Jan. 29, 2011 with a star-studded black-tie gala celebration followed one week later by the much-anticipated inaugural season featuring a host of top performers in music, dance and theater.
Joining the prominent ranks of the Walt Disney and Henry & Renee Segerstrom Concert Halls in Southern California, the HGA Architects & Engineer-designed Valley Performing Arts Center is a feat of modern technology and sustainability. The $125 million center is comprised of three connected buildings forming a U-shaped complex wrapped around a central exterior courtyard.
The main feature of the center is a 1,700-seat multi-purpose concert hall designed with the latest technology in acoustical flexibility to support orchestra, opera, Broadway, film, contemporary music and dance.
David Conant, a principal of acoustical and audiovisual consultants McKay Conant Hoover, which provided the acoustical and AV design recommendations to the architect, said the Valley Performing Arts Center has some “very” unique features that gives the center flexibility in enhancing sound and acoustics.
“Perhaps the most acoustically unique aspect of the concert hall is the screen “grillage” covering several of its walls,” Conant said. “Behind this visual cover lie both carefully shaped reflecting construction and deployable sound absorptive wool serge fabric which provide an ability to adjust the sound reflecting characteristics of these acoustically important surfaces.”
Conant and a crew of sound experts have performed numerous initial tests of the hall including at the recent performance of Doc Severinsen & El Ritmo de la Vida Jazz Ensemble. Faculty and staff were offered free tickets to that concert as well. Conant said the tests will assist the technicians in preparing for future concerts and performances.
For more information, call (818) 677-2488 or visit http://www.valleyperformingartscenter.org/msso/.
—Shanté Morgan
