Inaugurated Sept. 9 and 10 with dual galas featuring conductor Leonard Slatkin, who was recently named the symphony's artistic adviser, and country singer Amy Grant, the $123 million, 1,860-seat concert hall is an architectural and acoustic gem and one of the most successful auditoriums built in a century. Named after Kenneth Schermerhorn, the orchestra's long-time music director who died in 2005, the center is also a managerial triumph, as it was completed on time, on budget, and without rancor...

No matter how we might admire the sleek interiors of New York's Avery Fisher Hall or Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, the eye -- or at least my eye -- eventually begs for some ornament. Mr. Schwarz answers this need by carrying his façade details into the interior, where he collaborated with the project's principal acoustician, Paul Scarbrough of Akustiks LLC. Modeled on Vienna's Musikverein, the center's Laura Turner Concert Hall is long and tall, with tiers of narrow boxes lining the sides and a clerestory allowing in natural light.

This is a hall where every sound is not only heard but felt. Saturday's gala ended with the final movements of Mahler's Second Symphony. The initial consonants of mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade's pianissimo text carried throughout the hall. And later, when the orchestra was joined by its chorus on stage and brass scattered on balconies, Mahler's vision of resurrection was both explosive and
ethereal. — Michael Linton, Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2006