Symphony musicians don't make a lot of money, so they often help pay the bills by teaching. This can make for a lot of driving back and forth between downtown - where the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra plays at the Orpheum Theatre - and their homes, where the lessons are usually taught.
In 2003, VSO music director Bramwell Tovey and board chair Art Willms came up with a possible solution: to build a VSO music school downtown where VSO members could teach.
Willms approached developer Rob Macdonald with the idea. Macdonald looked out his office window and saw the perfect site: the Capitol 6 auditorium beside the Orpheum, which was about to be vacated when Famous Players moved to a new multiplex at Burrard and Smithe.
Macdonald bought the Capitol site for $7.6 million, then approached the city with the concept of a VSO music school in a new highrise development.
Thus began the biggest "civic amenity" deal in Vancouver history. On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the general public gets to check out the results, when the new VSO School of Music has an open house at 843 Seymour.
Macdonald and his partners, Bruno and Peter Wall, were given 250,000 sq. ft. of bonus density to pay for several new civic amenities: the VSO school, a 120-seat recital hall, and a 220-seat live theatre/rehearsal hall.
The cost was about $25 million, which the developers paid for by adding 25 storeys to the tower they could build at the site. The Capitol Residences wound up as one of the tallest and most distinctive new skyscrapers in the city, a 42-storey glass tower with the civic amenities on the bottom floors and 372 condos above. There's even a commercial component; Dunn's restaurant opens on the main floor Oct. 15.
The city's civic theatres department will operate the 220-seat venue, which could be used for everything from a rehearsal space for the VSO to a live musical or theatrical event.
The gem of the building, though, is the 120-seat recital hall, where the acoustics are incredible.
It's small (1,500 sq. ft) but dropdead gorgeous, and quite unexpected. Open a door on the second floor and all of a sudden you're in a dramatic three-storey-high space with walls covered in basalt stone and maple slats.
Classical guitarist Daniel Bolshoy says the space "demands music."
"It looks natural - you have rock, you have wood, you just want sound," says Bolshoy, a Moscow native who recently moved to Vancouver to teach at the VSO school.
An "acoustician" named John O'Keefe worked with Mike Hill and Doug Nelson from Bingham Hill Architects to design the space for maximum sound quality.
"The [maple] slats, the spacing and the angles of the [slats'] faces were chosen by the acoustician for sound diffusion," explains the school's executive director Shaun Taylor.
"The irregular surface of the [basalt] stone is for micro-diffusion, so the sound scatters off in a bunch of different directions."
The attention to detail is mindboggling: The side walls behind the maple slats are painted with four coats of acoustically sensitive paint. One wall is angled so the room isn't a perfect rectangle, which would make sound "bounce" from side to side.
In 2003, VSO music director Bramwell Tovey and board chair Art Willms came up with a possible solution: to build a VSO music school downtown where VSO members could teach.
Willms approached developer Rob Macdonald with the idea. Macdonald looked out his office window and saw the perfect site: the Capitol 6 auditorium beside the Orpheum, which was about to be vacated when Famous Players moved to a new multiplex at Burrard and Smithe.
Macdonald bought the Capitol site for $7.6 million, then approached the city with the concept of a VSO music school in a new highrise development.
Thus began the biggest "civic amenity" deal in Vancouver history. On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the general public gets to check out the results, when the new VSO School of Music has an open house at 843 Seymour.
Macdonald and his partners, Bruno and Peter Wall, were given 250,000 sq. ft. of bonus density to pay for several new civic amenities: the VSO school, a 120-seat recital hall, and a 220-seat live theatre/rehearsal hall.
The cost was about $25 million, which the developers paid for by adding 25 storeys to the tower they could build at the site. The Capitol Residences wound up as one of the tallest and most distinctive new skyscrapers in the city, a 42-storey glass tower with the civic amenities on the bottom floors and 372 condos above. There's even a commercial component; Dunn's restaurant opens on the main floor Oct. 15.
The city's civic theatres department will operate the 220-seat venue, which could be used for everything from a rehearsal space for the VSO to a live musical or theatrical event.
The gem of the building, though, is the 120-seat recital hall, where the acoustics are incredible.
It's small (1,500 sq. ft) but dropdead gorgeous, and quite unexpected. Open a door on the second floor and all of a sudden you're in a dramatic three-storey-high space with walls covered in basalt stone and maple slats.
Classical guitarist Daniel Bolshoy says the space "demands music."
"It looks natural - you have rock, you have wood, you just want sound," says Bolshoy, a Moscow native who recently moved to Vancouver to teach at the VSO school.
An "acoustician" named John O'Keefe worked with Mike Hill and Doug Nelson from Bingham Hill Architects to design the space for maximum sound quality.
"The [maple] slats, the spacing and the angles of the [slats'] faces were chosen by the acoustician for sound diffusion," explains the school's executive director Shaun Taylor.
"The irregular surface of the [basalt] stone is for micro-diffusion, so the sound scatters off in a bunch of different directions."
The attention to detail is mindboggling: The side walls behind the maple slats are painted with four coats of acoustically sensitive paint. One wall is angled so the room isn't a perfect rectangle, which would make sound "bounce" from side to side.
"This room is box-in-a-box construction, so it's actually held up - it's hanging and resting on certain weight-bearing points of alternating steel and compressed rubber, because it's surrounded by a big air pocket," says Taylor.
"It's vibrationally and acoustically isolated from the rest of the building. So no ambulance sound, no sound from anywhere else in the building [seeps through]."
The house piano is a nine-foot Steinway chosen by Tovey and a concert pianist during a visit to the Steinway factory in New York. There is a control room and recording console just off the side of the stage to record performances.
The space can also be modified depending on the use. Acoustic panels tucked into the side walls can be raised or lowered depending on how you want the sound, and the tiered floor becomes flat at the push of a button.
"We can have a catered banquet, a convention and a concert, all in one day," says Taylor.
"It's great for us, for one aspect of the business plan is for us to be completely self-sufficient, and not need any regular government funding. So earned revenue for us is rentals."
The rest of the school has a cool, contemporary look. It feels quite spacious, has an elegant staircase that ushers visitors to the main rooms upstairs, and even has a bit of a deco feel in the two-toned wood-veneer walls.
The overall space is 25,000 sq. ft and includes two classrooms, 18 "acoustically designed" teaching rooms, a two-storey-high ensemble room and six practice rooms.
The initial staff is 51, including 29 members of the VSO.
"As of today we have approximately 100 students registered to start this fall," says Taylor. "Our target is 300 for our first year and 600 the second year."
Some of the $25-million cost was drummed up by the school.
"We had to raise approximately $3.5 million to outfit the facility," says Taylor. "That's every coat rack, pencil sharpener and piano - we purchased 35 pianos at a cost of $1.2 million.
The civic amenities at the Capitol site aren't all finished - there is a 25-foot space behind the Orpheum that could be added onto the Orpheum stage at some point. (You can tell where it is from the outside because the space is clad in glass decorated with Beethoven's Ode To Joy.) Macdonald says the deal wasn't easy to put together, but he is pretty proud of how it all turned out.
"It's stunning; it's a great facility," says Macdonald. "When they're building a community amenity, people really put their shoulder into it."
jmackie@vancouversun.com
"It's vibrationally and acoustically isolated from the rest of the building. So no ambulance sound, no sound from anywhere else in the building [seeps through]."
The house piano is a nine-foot Steinway chosen by Tovey and a concert pianist during a visit to the Steinway factory in New York. There is a control room and recording console just off the side of the stage to record performances.
The space can also be modified depending on the use. Acoustic panels tucked into the side walls can be raised or lowered depending on how you want the sound, and the tiered floor becomes flat at the push of a button.
"We can have a catered banquet, a convention and a concert, all in one day," says Taylor.
"It's great for us, for one aspect of the business plan is for us to be completely self-sufficient, and not need any regular government funding. So earned revenue for us is rentals."
The rest of the school has a cool, contemporary look. It feels quite spacious, has an elegant staircase that ushers visitors to the main rooms upstairs, and even has a bit of a deco feel in the two-toned wood-veneer walls.
The overall space is 25,000 sq. ft and includes two classrooms, 18 "acoustically designed" teaching rooms, a two-storey-high ensemble room and six practice rooms.
The initial staff is 51, including 29 members of the VSO.
"As of today we have approximately 100 students registered to start this fall," says Taylor. "Our target is 300 for our first year and 600 the second year."
Some of the $25-million cost was drummed up by the school.
"We had to raise approximately $3.5 million to outfit the facility," says Taylor. "That's every coat rack, pencil sharpener and piano - we purchased 35 pianos at a cost of $1.2 million.
The civic amenities at the Capitol site aren't all finished - there is a 25-foot space behind the Orpheum that could be added onto the Orpheum stage at some point. (You can tell where it is from the outside because the space is clad in glass decorated with Beethoven's Ode To Joy.) Macdonald says the deal wasn't easy to put together, but he is pretty proud of how it all turned out.
"It's stunning; it's a great facility," says Macdonald. "When they're building a community amenity, people really put their shoulder into it."
jmackie@vancouversun.com
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