Adelaide Town Hall: Adelaide, AUSTRALIA

Recently, I had the pleasure of doing a performance at the Adelaide Town Hall... cunningly located in the central area of Adelaide (South Australia). Adelaide isn't a city that I have visited very often, I think I have been here only a handful of times before I relocated to Europe... but oddly enough, it was host to one of my first performances in Australia on my return recently.

It is quite a quaint old colonial building that is now surrounded by the modern architecture of the more recent buildings. In fact, it can be quite hard to get a good angle to take a photo from!

Something that you do notice right away, is how the building which is quite important (or was).... is completely dwarfed by all the newer building around it. There was no plan to allow it to sit in it's own space... a pity I think, but it is what it is.

As you can see, the building always had been surrounded by other buildings... but in the past, the adjoining buildings weren't quite so high, making the clock tower of the Town Hall a real feature of the otherwise flat landscape of Adelaide.

All the walls are currently adorned with paintings and interesting memorabilia from the building's history. For instance, this painting of the main hall... when it was used as a function and dance hall!

The foyer area (the one outside the main hall, but above the main entrance) is representative of the main public areas of the building. Lovely timber fittings, and large chandeliers... and a pleasant deep blue carpet flooring. It really speaks of simple good taste and class to me!

Interestingly enough, there is a huge meeting/function hall directly behind the main hall (which is also used as the concert hall). It isn't often that musicians are spoiled with such a generous space... although, I have to say, it is a bit unnerving to have quite such a large space... I'm pretty happy in the corner!

A shot of the stage from the audience section. The raised stage is backgrounded by the lovely wood veneer of the pipe organ... personally, I think it is quite a decent backdrop for an music ensemble to play against!

As I had mentioned before, I haven't played so much in Adelaide... and I think that I have played in this particular hall only once before. So, it was all a bit of a new experience to be playing here... and I was quite pleasantly surprised! Easy to hear across the stage, and when the audience was in the hall, it was quite a pleasant stage to play on, with just enough feedback acoustic from the rest of the room.

I've been a bit disappointed by the roof/ceiling designs in Australia.... of course, they were done in a different age compared to those that were done in Europe... they have a certain classical cleanliness to them in comparison to the Baroque frescoes, but I do miss those crazily ornate paintings that would occupy my attention above me!

... and of course, a mandatory shot of what we see from our side of the stage! The seats are all forward facing, and the lower section is temporary removable seating, which means that they aren't raked upwards. This does make it a little less good for those at the back, but when the audience were seated, I think that the raised stage made it so that there was no problem with sight lines.