26-640: Birmingham Town Hall is a concert hall and venue for popular assemblies opened in 1834 and situated in Victoria Square , Birmingham , England . It is a Grade I listed building . The hall underwent a major renovation between 2002 and 2007. It now hosts a diverse programme of events including jazz, world, folk, rock, pop and classical concerts, organ recitals, spoken word, dance, family, educational and community performances, as well as annual general meetings, product launches, conferences, dinners, fashion shows, graduation ceremonies and broadcasts. The building
52-464: A distinctive interlocking spiral design, above which the simplified entablature features a plain architrave and dentil cornice . Behind the colonnade the cella containing the Great Hall features tall windows capped with eared architraves. At the south end of the podium there is an arcade two bays deep, glazed in to form a vestibule in 1995, that marks the main entrance to the building. The building
78-537: A listing of the theatres that support Broadway shows. Symphony Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall is a 2,262 seat concert venue in Birmingham , England . It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 12 June 1991, although it had been in use since 15 April 1991. It is home to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and hosts around 270 events a year. It was completed at a cost of £30 million. The hall's interior
104-493: A memorial, consisting of a pillar base made by one of the workmen for the Town Hall, was dedicated to them. Architect Charles Edge was commissioned in 1835 to repair weaknesses to the design of the building. He was also commissioned for the extension of the building in 1837 and again in 1850. At Christmas 1853, Charles Dickens gave the first of his public readings of his own works in the building, repeating this to raise money for
130-401: A volume of 12,700 cubic metres (450,000 cu ft). There is an acoustic canopy which can be raised or lowered above the stage. Dampening panels can be extended or retracted to ensure that the sound of the space is perfectly matched to the scale and style of the music to be performed. There are also reverse fan walls at the rear of the hall which provide further reflections of sound. All
156-505: Is constructed in brick made in Selly Oak and faced with Penmon Anglesey Marble presented to the town by Sir Richard Bulkeley, proprietor of the Penmon quarries. The town hall is famous for its concert pipe organ. Originally installed in 1834 by William Hill & Sons with 6,000 pipes, it was once the largest and most technologically advanced in the world. In 1888, Charles William Perkins
182-679: Is modelled on the Musikverein in Vienna and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam . The venue, managed alongside Town Hall, presents a programme of jazz, world, folk, rock, pop and classical concerts, organ recitals, spoken word, dance, comedy, educational and community performances, and is also used for conferences and business events as part of the International Convention Centre . In 2016
208-547: The Birmingham and Midland Institute ; and Mendelssohn 's Elijah (August 1846), Elgar 's The Dream of Gerontius (October 1900) and Arthur Sullivan 's Overture di Ballo (August 1870) received their premieres in the hall as part of the Triennial Musical Festival which commissioned new works for every season. The hall was the home venue for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1918 until 1991 when they moved to Symphony Hall . In November 1880,
234-559: The Concert Hall Acoustics expert Leo Beranek ranked Symphony Hall as having the finest acoustics in the United Kingdom, and the seventh best in the world. Proof of these fine acoustics is that a pre-opening acoustic test demonstrated that if a pin was dropped on stage, the sound could be heard from anywhere in the hall. Symphony Hall was designed by Percy Thomas Partnership and Renton Howard Wood Levin, (who together formed
260-679: The Royal Albert Hall in the 1996 film Brassed Off . The Hall closed in 1996 for a £35 million refurbishment, undertaken by Wates Construction , that saw the Town Hall brought back to its original glory with its 6,000-pipe organ still in place. The project was funded by £18.3 million from Birmingham City Council, £13.7 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3 million from the European Regional Development Fund. The upper gallery, which had been added in 1926–27,
286-534: The Convention Centre Partnership for the ICC) with specialist help from Russell Johnson , founder of acoustic consultants Artec . A particularly innovative feature is the hall's acoustic flexibility. It has a reverberation chamber behind the stage and extending high along the sides, adding 50% to the hall's volume, the doors to which can be remotely opened or closed. The U-shaped reverberation chamber area has
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#1732851097794312-579: The Hall was filled to capacity for a Birmingham public protest meeting in support of Revd. Richard Enraght , Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley , who was imprisoned in Warwick Prison under the Disraeli Government's Public Worship Regulation Act . In December 1901, it was the scene of rioting on the occasion of a visit by David Lloyd George . On 9 August 1902, the town hall, along with the council house,
338-432: The Town Hall and the whole of the city was devised by William Haywood , Secretary of The Birmingham Civic Society . Popular music has also featured, and in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, headline acts such as Buddy Holly , The Beatles , Led Zeppelin , Queen , Pink Floyd , Black Sabbath , The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan appeared. It featured prominently in the 1967 Peter Watkins film Privilege and doubled for
364-524: The building; W. P. Lloyd, John Welch and Edward Tench. With the injection of this money, the building was successfully opened for the delayed Music Festival on 7 October 1834. During construction, on 26 January 1833, two workers were killed when a 70-foot crane constructed to install the roof trusses broke and the pulley block failed. John Heap died instantly and William Badger died a few days later from his injuries. They were buried in St Philip's churchyard and
390-420: The construction cost to be £8,000 (equivalent to £940,000 in 2023). The first of the monumental town halls that would come to characterise the cities of Victorian England , Birmingham Town Hall was also the first significant work of the 19th-century revival of Roman architecture , a style chosen here in the context of the highly charged radicalism of 1830s Birmingham for its republican associations. The design
416-422: The hall's closure to 2005, thus ensuring that it was maintained in playable condition. The hall is now managed alongside Symphony Hall , by the registered charity Performances Birmingham Limited. At 1,100, the seating capacity is about half that of Symphony Hall. It reopened for concerts on 4 October 2007, and was officially reopened on 22 April 2008 by TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall. During
442-453: The more expensive Paradise Street site. The latter was chosen and a design competition was launched which resulted with the submission of 67 designs including one by Charles Barry , whose design for the King Edward's School on New Street was then under construction. Joseph Hansom , of Hansom cab fame, and Edward Welch were chosen as the architects and they expressed that they expected
468-565: The television channel BBC One . The BBC Big Screen was removed after much controversy. The hall takes the form of a free-standing Corinthian temple, with 14 bays running north to south and 8 bays east to west. It is closely modelled on the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome and reproduces its predecessor's most distinctive feature – its tall podium – in rusticated stone . The building's columns are topped with capitals featuring Acanthus leaves in
494-512: The ventilation noise. In 2001, a 6000-pipe symphony organ was installed, designed and built by Johannes Klais Orgelbau in Bonn and specially tailored to the hall's reverberation chambers. This is now the largest mechanical action organ in the UK. Through its management company B:Music Limited, Symphony Hall alongside Town Hall has charitable status and through an Education/Community department carries out
520-404: The walls and the ceiling are 200 millimetres (8 in) thick and are made of concrete. The hall is built only 30 metres (100 ft) from a covered railway line. To prevent the transmission of vibrations, the hall is mounted on rubber cushions, as is the railway track. The hall is also shielded from heavy traffic on Broad Street by double skins of concrete. Large, low-speed air ducting cuts
546-542: The years of refurbishment the side of the Town Hall facing Victoria Square was hidden by giant advertising sheets, a giant advent calendar , and during the 2002 FIFA World Cup a large outside television screen that was used to broadcast live matches from Korea and Japan . Although the television screen was only temporary, another "Big Screen" was erected on the corner of the building in Chamberlain Square facing Birmingham Central Library , which broadcast live from
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#1732851097794572-488: Was appointed the first City Organist, based at the Town Hall. The organ was restored by Willis in 1932. Concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that may occasionally be used for concerts. Brod Tambura Orchestra The Lark Balbriggan See also Broadway theatre for
598-600: Was based on the proportions of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in the Roman Forum . "Perfect and aloof" on a tall, rusticated podium, it marked an entirely new concept in English architecture. Hill of London was hired to build the 6,000 pipe organ for £6,000. Construction began on 27 April 1832 with an expected completion date of 1833. However, Hansom went bankrupt during construction, having tendered too low. The contractors were also losing money. Three guarantors donated money for
624-624: Was created as a home for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival established in 1784, the purpose of which was to raise funds for the General Hospital , after St Philip's Church (later to become a cathedral) became too small to hold the festival, and for public meetings. Two sites were considered by the Birmingham Street Commissioners for the construction of a concert hall in the city; Bennetts Hill and
650-588: Was illuminated in celebration of the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra . In 1937, as part of the celebrations for the Coronation of George VI , the Town Hall was bedecked with the various Arms of the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham since 1166 and each column festooned with garlands. The pediment also had images of Britannia, supported by mermaids, which were sculpted by William Bloye . This decorative scheme for
676-404: Was removed, restoring the interior of the hall to an approximation of its original condition. The Birmingham City Organist , Thomas Trotter, performed a piece of music to a group of school children in 2005 after the majority of the organ had been cleaned. However, the organist and the children all had to wear hard hats as the risk of falling debris remained. He had played the organ each month from
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