An Amazing Recital Hall

View photographs of some recent recitals held at Zenph Studios.

A modern recital hall maintained by Zenph Studios is the home of two fine concert grand pianos. This new hall, in Raleigh, North Carolina, opened in September 2003 - at the same time as two other excellent new halls in the USA: the Zankel Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

The Zenph Studios recital hall seats sixty people: fifty people on the main floor and ten in the balcony. It was constructed as a room-within-a-room - the inner room is acoustically isolated from the outer structure - making the hall supremely soundproofed. Its floor and stage are maple hardwood; the walls and ceilings are cherry hardwood. The room is temperature and humidity controlled year-round, maintained at 70 degrees with 42% humidity. The heating and cooling systems were designed for low noise. It is situated on a five-acre property, in the midst of a protected wooded area.

The recital hall was designed to reward performers, under the presumption that the best way to get superb performances is to offer performers superb feedback. The stage is built as a resonant platform - performers can feel the vibrations of their instruments or voices through their feet. The walls and ceiling are tilted to reflect sound waves obliquely, avoiding dead spots or odd reflections. Reverberation time has been carefully controlled.

Every performer there, whether instrumentalist or vocalist, has observed that the hall makes them a better musician - they've never been able to hear themselves so clearly. It's a music room like those built a hundred years ago, where its wonderful sound reinforcement makes microphone amplification unnecessary. It has similar dimensions to the recital hall in Richard Wagner's home in Bayreuth, Germany, but with better acoustics. It's the baby brother of the Zankel hall in New York, but without the subway noise. It's an extraordinary performance and recording space.