Rafael Payare has taken up residence in Montreal, with his wife, Alisa Weilerstein, and their daughter. However, an orchestra in North America had discovered it before us: the San Diego Symphony. There, the conductor has just opened a new musical era by inaugurating a new room, or rather the very convincing modernized version of the Jacobs Music Center, nestled in a former temple of cinema, a heritage building built by Fox in 1929.
“We’re off to another 100 years,” rejoices Martha Gilmer, president and CEO of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra (SDS). The statement, which may seem optimistic, summarizes the extent of the work carried out on a building that we had seen in skeleton form in 2022, when we reported on the inauguration of the large outdoor stage on the edge of the sea, the Rady Shell. We could not have found a better title than “Rafael Payare, the builder”.
Two missions
The career of the Venezuelan conductor will have meant that in Montreal, by the number and nature of the positions to be filled within the orchestra, he finds himself in the position of Charles Dutoit in the 1970s and 1980s, shaping the sound personality and music of the OSM for decades to come. In San Diego, with the opening of the Rady Shell in 2022, and the new Jacobs Center in 2024, Payare now has, like Kent Nagano here in 2011, all the tools to develop an orchestral culture.
The aim here is not to report on the opening of a concert hall in California, but to see how determined long-term development strategies can be carried out elsewhere and to gauge the means implemented to achieve it.
In San Diego, it all starts with a three-point plan, summarized by Craig Hall, SDS director of marketing and communications. It has its source in the choice, in 2014, to lead the administration, of Martha Gilmer, an experienced manager, who trained for three decades at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. “We needed to strengthen the identity of the orchestra, create and manage a permanent outdoor structure and improve our concert hall. The first point was resolved by the commitment of Rafael Payare in 2018, the second by the inauguration of Rady Shell in May 2022 and here we are with the new Jacobs Center in October 2024.”
Craig Hall points out that points 1 and 3 are linked: “Martha Gilmer did things in order, but the relationship is clear and all the tools are there now. » The renovation phase of the room, located in the heart of the city, benefited from a pandemic opportunity. “The State of California has identified the construction sector as a priority. » So, as long as we’re closing, we might as well carry out the project from top to bottom.
At the start of an adventure which was somewhat prolonged (the opening was initially planned for November 2023), the costs were estimated at 50 to 125 million US dollars. We will exceed the upper range somewhat, admits Craig Hall. Donation campaigns “are underway,” Martha Gilmer tells us. Given the excitement over the outcome, the community should do what it must. But the feat is major, since the outer shell was recently built, already, on 99% private funds.
The choice of the heart
The population base served in San Diego County, 3.3 million people, is industrially thriving, with companies in biotechnology, new technologies and ” blue economy » (companies linked to the sea with an awareness of sustainable development).
Cities such as Paris or Hamburg have chosen to decentralize their new concert halls. Martha Gilmer nevertheless chose, even at a high price, to renovate a room anchored in the heart of the city: “A new room would have cost even more. When you renovate, you discover things (and therefore costs), but my thinking was that the framework of the Jacobs Center was solid and the potential for great acoustics was there. There was a need to focus the sound and I had great confidence in Paul Scarbrough, from Akustiks. Furthermore, the city center is populated not with offices, but with housing. Certainly, companies biotech and of high-tech are in the north, but there is a population return to the center and, therefore, having nightlife and culture is important. »
Both the general director and the marketing director agree that the outdoor stage captures a different audience, one that a relocated venue could possibly have reached. “The growth of Rady Shell will help us,” judges Craig Hall.
Furthermore, in the business model, the two places are administered by the SDS, with important consequences: the income generated by the rental of the external stage (to which the SDS has access and right of activity 110 days in the year) for pop shows or private evenings help with the operation of the symphony orchestra. “We have ticketing revenue and “other revenue”. When I arrived, “other income” was less than 10%. They now represent 20 to 25%,” says Martha Gilmer. For the weekend of October 3 to 6, the two halls administered by the SDS hosted seven shows in four days. “The business model is very interesting: we are faithful to our mission while also generating the money necessary for our activities. » The total SDS budget is $48 million. “We would not have been able to survive in the old model,” concedes the director.
Heat
On an artistic level, the pandemic and post-pandemic interlude has been a challenge for Rafael Payare and his musicians. “Luckily, the opening of Rady Shell gave us a concrete and quick start,” says Christopher Smith, first trumpeter of the SDS, who was a member of the OSM for a little over 10 years, until ‘in 2019. From 2021 to 2024, the orchestra also performed in outlying venues. Like Martha Gilmer, Christopher Smith does not remember from this period the acoustic challenges, but “the contact with the communities”. “It’s a new audience that we are now looking to bring to the Jacobs Center,” says Martha Gilmer, who nevertheless does not rule out trying the experience of playing on the outskirts again.
Mr. Smith knows the Maison symphonique de Montréal and the new Jacobs Center well, whose “warmth” he praises, like everyone else. As in Montreal, the key to the musical development that Rafael Payare will be able to undertake with the SDS lies in the ability of the musicians to hear each other on stage. When Chris Smith exclaims: “I can hear the violins even when I play”, we sense a form of miracle for a musician who only knew the old San Diego hall for six months.
Same quality as in Montreal, therefore, “with a sound that tends less to saturate”, thanks to adjustable panels above the stage that the acoustician, Paul Scarbrough, adjusted with the instructions of the musicians and Rafael Payare during the weeks preceding the opening. To rethink the acoustics in the room, Paul Scarbrough’s main idea was to significantly shorten the part of the floor under the balcony, to create slopes, to reorient the seats, as well as to work on sound reflection spaces behind the orchestra and to the back of the room.
For a renovation of an existing room, especially an old cinema, the result is astonishing in its precision and comfort. The San Diego Hall thus becomes one of the most beautiful and efficient heritage halls in North America: a century-old setting respected and restored with modern technologies, including an in-home recording system, which makes it possible to capture all the concerts in Dolby Atmos technology, an adjoining studio allowing corrections and editing.
The recording policy and distribution method have not yet been chosen. “We are evaluating everything,” Martha Gilmer told us. The 1er registration Payare-San Diego, the 11e Symphony by Shostakovich for Platoon, a label linked to Apple, was not followed up. “We had nowhere to record,” notes the general director. Certainly, the data has just changed. And masterfully.
Christophe Huss was the guest of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.