SAN FRANCISCO — Construction is underway with a four-month countdown to a grand opening on January 21, 2013 (Martin Luther King Day) of the SFJAZZ Center, a new, state-of-the-art performance venue in the heart of San Francisco. Located at 205 Franklin Street, the SFJAZZ Center will be a hub of art, music, culture, and community in the Civic Center performing arts district, already home to Davies Symphony Hall, the San Francisco Opera House, the Herbst Theatre and the historic Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
Funding is entirely from private sources, led by an anonymous gift of $25 million — the largest ever given to a jazz institution — and SFJAZZ has now raised $55M of the $63 million for the project.
The three-story Center comprises 35,000 square feet in a transparent, LEED-certified structure featuring the main Robert N. Miner Auditorium adjustable from 350 to 700 seats, the 80-seat multi-purpose ensemble room, rehearsal spaces, digital learning lab, café at sidewalk level, ground floor lobby, retail shop, box office and SFJAZZ administrative offices.
The Design Team
The SFJAZZ Center was designed by award-winning architect Mark Cavagnero, noted acoustician Sam Berkow of SIA Acoustics, theater designer Len Auerbach and constructed by lead contractor Hathaway/Dinwiddie.
SIA Acoustics worked with the team to define a room shape and finish selection that will provide both a tonally balanced listening space for the SFJAZZ audience and comfortable and supportive stage for the performers. (See rendering at right) The room was also designed to support high quality recording. SIA Acoustics worked with the architects and engineers to reduce HVAC noise levels making the space suitable as quiet as possible.
The most prominent acoustical detail in the Robert N. Miner Auditorium is the 24-by-12-foot acoustical canopy that will hang above the stage. Constructed of steel tubing, the canopy will support more than 50 sound scattering elements and is designed to create a responsive and supportive stage environment for acoustic instruments and help project the sound into the audience.
Jazz music encompasses a wide range of performance types, so the stage acoustics have a variable acoustical element, allowing additional absorption to be deployed when louder stage volumes require. The sound system will use small format, line array technology to provide clear and intelligible sound to every seat.
Yesterday and Today
In the fall of 1983, SFJAZZ, then known as Jazz In The City, presented two concerts at the Herbst Theatre with a simple philosophy: offer the best of jazz music in an environment that showcases the full spectrum and artistry of the art form. Thirty years later, the SFJAZZ Center will open just two blocks from the site of the first concerts.
The premiere concert at the SFJAZZ Center, on Wednesday, January 23, will be a musical extravaganza with McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Esperanza Spalding, Joe Lovano, Joshua Redman, Master of Ceremonies Bill Cosby, and many more special guests.
“After 30 years of presenting music in a variety of rented venues throughout the San Francisco Bay area, it is with great joy we announce our first season in our new home, the SFJAZZ Center,” says Randall Kline, the founder and executive artistic director of SFJAZZ. “The Center is the first free-standing building for jazz in the country – designed, from concept to concert hall, to create an enhanced setting for creating and experiencing what the esteemed jazz writer Whitney Balliett calls ‘the sound of surprise.’”
For more info, about SFJAZZ, go to sfjazz.org.
For more info about SIA Acoustics, go to siaacoustics.com.
