Many local concertgoers have heard a performance in Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory at one time or another, and know that the hall is an acoustic marvel. But probably few are familiar with the hall's history, or know why it inspires such devotion among musical cognoscenti that Yo-Yo Ma has said, "I love Jordan Hall so much... for the unbelievable acoustics. And for its warmth and intimacy. But most of all for the sense of event when you go there." It is perhaps exactly this blend of the small and the grand scale that makes Jordan Hall at NEC so unique, and gives it both a local following and an international reputation.

Opened in 1903, Jordan Hall was the gift of New England Conservatory trustee Eben D. Jordan the 2nd, a member of the family that founded the Jordan Marsh retail stores and himself an amateur musician. In 1901, Jordan donated land for NEC's Main Building, while also offering to fund a concert hall with a gift of $120,000.

Although Jordan Hall was built just three years after and one block away from Symphony Hall, the two halls have very different designs. While the new Symphony Hall was already held up as an acoustical model with its long, rectangular shape, the Conservatory's land was square. An innovative solution was found by the architect chosen to design the new hall, Edmund Wheelwright of the Boston firm Wheelwright & Haven (who later went on to design Horticultural Hall, the present home of the Handel and Haydn Society administrative offices.) Working with the square plot of land, Wheelwright modeled the building after the palaces of the Italian renaissance, in which courtyards often served as performance spaces.

Wheelwright's design is what gives Jordan Hall its unique horseshoe shape, in which 1,019 seats are arranged to have clear sightlines to the stage. The floor is steeply graduated for maximum view, and the balcony has no obstructing supports. The shape and arrangement of seats give the hall its fine acoustical properties. Other distinctive features include the golden oak-colored finish of the interior and the great organ, also in oak with a gilt finish, and modeled on another Renaissance design: that of the organ in the Santa Maria Scala in Siena.

The dedication concert of Jordan Hall, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, took place on October 20, 1903, and created quite a stir. Effusive newspaper accounts deemed the hall "unequaled the world over," and the Boston Globe reported that it was "a place of entertainment that European musicians who were present that evening say excels in beauty anything of the kind they ever saw." Since then, Jordan Hall has been host to countless world-class performances and performers, including soloists such as Pablo Casals, Nadia Boulanger, Marian Anderson, Martha Graham, Rudolf Serkin, and Isaac Stern; conductors Arthur Fiedler and Kurt Masur; composers Aaron Copland and Bela Bartok; jazz legends Benny Goodman and Stan Getz; and the Budapest, Juilliard, and Tokyo string quartets.

Jordan Hall at NEC has been designated a National Historic Landmark, and recently underwent an $8.2 million restoration. The project has made Jordan Hall more functional, with improved handicapped access and climate control, and encompassed both interior restoration and mechanical systems while retaining the hall's acclaimed acoustics and beauty.

Nearly a century after it was built, Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory continues to be a cherished performance venue for Boston's music community, and the Society looks forward to continuing its own performance history there into the future.

-Information courtesy of New England Conservatory