In what is becoming a holiday tradition, members of the Stanford Symphony are taking to the water, to give a concert on Dec. 12, in Avalon Casino Theater, the event sponsored by the Catalina Island Museum. It is a sponsorship so potent that museum members and those under 17 will have free admission. Otherwise tickets are $5. Sweet!
Anna Wittstruck conducts the ensemble in an all-Mozart program of Symphony No. 29, the "Exsultate, jubilate" (with soprano Clancy Cox), and Violin Concerto No. 5, with Chen Zhao, of the San Francisco Symphony, as soloist.
The venue is notable: the Avalon Theater has a seating capacity of 1,154 (for the island population of about 4,000 plus as many or more tourists), used mostly for showing movies on a single massive screen, but it also has a 4-manual, 16 rank pipe organ, and exceptional acoustics with a circular domed ceiling.
Studied by acoustical designers because of its excellence, the theater is so well designed that a speaker on the stage can speak without a microphone and be heard clearly everywhere. But the hall is also insulated so that no sound is heard from the ballroom above it, even with a band playing for up to 3,000 dancers.