Facing you now is Hill Auditorium, a 3,500-seat concert hall on the Central Campus of the University of Michigan, home to its School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. It seats approximately 3,500 guests and regularly hosts musical performances, lectures, and graduation ceremonies. The building was named for Arthur Hill (1847–1909), who served as a regent from 1901 to 1909 and bequeathed $200,000 — equivalent to $7.2 million in 2025 — to create a venue for lectures, musical performances, and other large productions.
Opened in 1913 and designed by Albert Kahn and Associates, Hill later returned to the same firm for a renovation that began in 2002 and culminated with its re-opening in 2004. Listen for the story that Carol Rose Kahn, the architect's granddaughter, tells: her grandfather set out to develop a hall with perfect acoustics. The original brief aimed for an auditorium that would seat five thousand people where every seat could hear; the only known previous example was the Mormon Tabernacle, famed for its ability to carry a pin drop from stage to the top balcony.
Picture that quest for perfect sound, carried from the Mormon Tabernacle's pin-drop hush into every corner of this hall.