Acoustics of Arts Center Win Praise During Study

While complaints about acoustics at the Orange County Performing Arts Center are being studied for possible design “refinements,” members of the Center’s original acoustical team say they remain highly pleased with overall results at the Center’s 3,000-seat multipurpose Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa.

“It is performing well (acoustically); it sounds wonderful; it is working,” said Jerald Hyde on Tuesday, after he and fellow consultants Harold Marshall and Dennis Paoletti met with Center administrators.

Marshall was making his first visit to the Center since January. He joined Paoletti and Hyde at the recent Acoustical Society of America conference held in Seattle and added a side trip--at their own expense--to the Center while they were on the West Coast.

Segerstrom Hall, the chief facility in the $73.3-million complex that opened in September, 1986, boasts an unusual asymmetrical, staggered-tiered interior design that is aimed at enhancing acoustics. But many artists playing there since have complained of “dead sound” pockets in the hall and other widely fluctuating sound patterns.

To discuss such complaints, the three acousticians met last Thursday afternoon with several Pacific Symphony musicians and with veteran chorale conductor William Hall, newly appointed director of the Master Chorale of Orange County.

Hall, among others, has complained of the on-stage arrangements affecting orchestral and choral sounds, including what he considered deficiencies of the acoustical shell for chorales. “But now I think we’re all on the same wavelength,” Hall said Wednesday. “I believe there will be positive changes as a result.”

The acousticians said choral shell “adjustments”--which could include additional sound reflectors--are among various design changes being proposed to the Center. But neither the consultants nor Center operations director Philip Mosbo would elaborate on the proposals, when these might be implemented or the estimated costs.

“I must emphasize these are all minor corrections,” said the New Zealand-based Marshall, who is considered most responsible for the asymmetrical concept. “ Corrections is too strong of a word-- refinements would be more accurate.”

Marshall and the other consultants would not comment on the issue of amplification--whether microphones were used in Opera Pacific productions of “La Boheme” last year and “Aida” this year. Paoletti, speaking to stage designers last March 24 at a Center workshop, had denied that mikes were used by performers in “Aida.”

Mosbo said Tuesday the only mikes used in “Aida” were for an off-stage harpist and the “monitoring” of the pit orchestra. But he said it was “my understanding” that mikes were used by some on-stage performers in “La Boheme.”