Sun Valley Pavilion
For a virtual tour and live webcam of the construction site, click here.
Computer rendering of the new Sun Valley Pavilion
After twenty-three years of performing great free concerts in makeshift tents, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony has a permanent new home! By August 3, 2008, the new Sun Valley Pavilion will have been transformed from a visionary architect’s rendering to a fully functional concert venue of international acclaim.
Installation of proscenium arch on March 13, 2008
The Sun Valley Summer Symphony and Sun Valley Company are building the exciting new Pavilion on the lower soccer field of the Sun Valley Resort. The essential element of the superstructure, a towering, seventy-foot high proscenium arch constructed in a Tacoma shipyard, was transported to Sun Valley in three enormous sections and welded back together onsite. This main arch was hoisted into place on Thursday, March 13. Installation of this formidable steel truss (weighing 75 tons), required the three largest commercial cranes in the region, with each crane having a capacity of 275 tons.
This proscenium arch is anchored by a massive subterranean foundation, enabling the structure to withstand all possible wind shear, snow loads, and seismic forces. The excavation for the foundation, commenced last August, culminating in 150 truckloads of concrete poured continuously one Saturday in September.
Inspired by the world’s greatest concert stages, the 3,000 square foot stage will easily accommodate the Symphony’s 100-piece orchestra, backed by choral risers. (This summer’s August 9th Benefit Fundraiser will include a full Symphony orchestra, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and mezzo-soprano, Denyce Graves.)
The stage itself will be lined with curved acoustical, fabricated wood panels designed to evenly deflect the sound. Similar curved acoustical panels will be suspended above the orchestra to disperse the natural acoustic vibrations throughout the seated audience.
The exposed wall surfaces will all be surfaced with imported travertine rock from the famous Mariotti quarry outside of Rome - the same material used throughout the Getty Center in Los Angeles, Lincoln Center in New York, and the Coliseum in Rome. 750 tons of travertine is on its way here by ship from the port of Civitavecchia, northwest of Rome.
The solid roof over the stage, and backstage, will be suspended by a grid of steel cables, attached to wooden runners, which, will in turn, support the Pavilion’s horn-shaped wooden roof clad with copper shingles.
The terraced, concentric, amphitheatre will seat an audience of 1,500 under nearly half an acre of white fabric, stretched from the proscenium arch to the curved pergola (promenade) at the rear of the audience. This tensile fabric canopy will be translucent; admitting soft, diffused sunlight in the daytime, and emitting a warm lantern-like glow from the outside on summer evenings. Every seat will have a more comfortable, more intimate relationship with the stage than ever before.
Beautiful Baldy views from the Sun Valley Pavilion
The gently terraced park, surrounding the Music Pavilion, will be equipped with a sophisticated sound system that will carry every note to thousands of picnickers enjoying the music and the majestic Baldy views. Picnickers will be able to see and hear the orchestra much more clearly than before. Utilizing components of the LARES-Lexicon system, the exterior sound will seem to emanate acoustically from the stage, rather than from speakers
FTL Design Engineering Studio developed the architectural concept for this magnificent pavilion. The firm has been designing alfresco music pavilions for thirty years, including the Pier 6 Pavilion on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Washington, DC’s Capitol Concerts Pavilion, and the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera’s portable concert facility. Nic Goldsmith, FTL’s Senior Principal and Project Director, describes the Sun Valley Pavilion as “an acoustic shell and a seated audience, protected by a tensile fabric canopy, which is anchored by a travertine rock foundation. The facility emerges from the terrain in the form of two stone retaining walls, arising to its apex to create an intimate sense of place, and then melding visually with the natural landscape.”
By far the largest benefactor to the Sun Valley Pavilion is Earl Holding and the Sun Valley Company. Several years ago, the Sun Valley Summer Symphony proposed the idea, having retained FTL to render an exciting new concept for its proposed permanent home on the resort’s Esplanade. The Holding family then offered to assume full responsibility for building and managing the Pavilion on its property, provided that the Symphony would raise the first three million dollars as a show of good faith, which it quickly did, by tapping its board of directors and loyal Symphony supporters. The resort intends to have a summer concert series and allow other organizations to use the facility.
80 Symphony donors who each have contributed or pledged donations from $10,000 to $250,000 will have their family, foundation, or corporate names permanently etched on the travertine “Wall of Appreciation” at the main entrance of the Pavilion. The display will also honor Earl Holding, who has provided the lion’s share of the project budget, including the finest possible site in Sun Valley. The Symphony’s opening night, August 3, 2008, featuring violinist Gil Shaham, will be dedicated to the extraordinary vision and generosity of Earl Holding and his family.
Every gift earmarked for the Sun Valley Pavilion will be gratefully recognized.