Problems in doing volume business

When Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall opened in 2001, acoustician Russell Johnson described it as a “sister hall” of the one he was working on at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Now, on the heels of a report by Johnson’s own firm detailing some expensive-to-fix sound problems at Verizon, backers of the Orange County hall, due to open in fall 2006, are saying the two auditoriums are more like cousins, twice or thrice removed.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Jan. 30 that it had obtained a study by Johnson’s Artec Consultants that found a “relatively low impact of the orchestral sound” inside Verizon -- meaning, essentially, that the music could use more oomph. A Verizon Hall spokesman says the analysis was “an internal document,” done for Verizon’s parent, the Kimmel Center, and “part of an ongoing process of review for studying the hall’s acoustics as it came of age.”

While Verizon and OCPAC’s Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall both feature Johnson’s trademark adjustable side panels, to be positioned differently depending on the scale and style of the music, there are marked differences, say Jerry E. Mandel, OCPAC’s president, and John E. Forsyte, executive director of its key tenant-to-be, the Pacific Symphony.

Verizon, designed by Rafael Vinoly, is shaped like a cello inside; the Cesar Pelli-designed Segerstrom has the more old-fashioned “shoebox” interior that Johnson had favored before taking on the Philadelphia project. Size matters too, says Forsyte: Segerstrom is more intimate, seating 2,000, and therefore less of a sound-projection challenge than the 2,500-seat Verizon.

Johnson’s adjustable features are contained in high-vaulting “acoustical chambers” that line the auditoriums on both sides. According to the Inquirer, Artec’s report on Verizon says the chamber doors that open or shut to let sound circulate or make it bounce back are 2 1/4 -inch-thick fiberboard in Philadelphia and need to be replaced with thicker ones to improve sound presence; Costa Mesa’s design already calls for the 6-inch-thick concrete doors that are part of the recommended Verizon fix. The Plexiglas sound-projecting canopy above the orchestra is an issue at Verizon; in Costa Mesa, the canopy will be more massive and made of heavy plaster, says Kerry Madden, OCPAC’s facilities chief.

“We express confidence in both projects. They are different in many ways,” says Tateo Nakajima, an Artec managing director. As for Johnson’s “sister” reference a few years ago, he says, “we like to think of our halls as belonging to a family, but in any family, approaches are similar but each member becomes very individual as it grows up.”

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Mike Boehm