Kleinhans Music Hall, home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, faces you on Symphony Circle in Buffalo, New York. This is the long-serving home of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, a regular venue for the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and a place rented out for other performing groups and local events. The building you see was designed by the father-and-son team Eliel Saarinen and Eero Saarinen, with help from local architects F. J. and W. A. Kidd.
Inside, Stanley McCandless served as lighting consultant and Charles C. Potwin advised on acoustics. The hall contains two performance spaces: the main auditorium and the Mary Seaton Room. The main auditorium now seats 2,441 people, down from its original 2,839 before renovations in 2015, and it proudly showcases a parabolic ceiling and an acoustically informed design.
The shape of the hall is crafted so audience members in the back rows of the balcony enjoy as clear and instantaneous an auditory experience as those nearer the stage. In recognition of its architectural importance, Kleinhans was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989, 49 years after its completion. Picture the parabolic ceiling shaping sound so listeners in the balcony's back rows hear as clearly as those near the stage.