Testing a Renewed Venue

On Sunday afternoon, the Glendale College Community Orchestra’s concert will only be half the issue. The other half will be how well the college’s newly renovated auditorium performs.

The 1,200-seat auditorium was gutted during the 15-month project. Part of the space became a 99-seat theater and six classrooms. The auditorium itself has about 400 seats, a hydraulic platform that can be raised and lowered, and two side stages with acoustic panels that will be pulled out to add to the orchestra’s sound.

“We’re getting a large volume of sound being put into an auditorium which is one-third its original size,” orchestra conductor Ted Stern said.

Rehearsals sounded impressive, but the acoustics change with an audience in the seats, he said.

“We’re dealing with a large set of unknowns.”

The concert will feature faculty member Jung Eun Kim as the soloist for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, the “Emperor” concerto. Kim is also excited about the new auditorium.

“It’s cozy,” she said. “It’s not too big. It’s not too small.”

The Glendale area needs an auditorium of this size, she said, because the only other sites hold very large numbers of people.

Stern said that such large venues as the Glendale Civic Auditorium and the facility at Glendale High School can be a problem when they aren’t filled, because “you have a lot of sound rattling around in the seats.”

The program will also feature Wagner’s Prelude to “Die Meistersinger” and “Mysterious Mountain” by Alan Hovhaness.

The concert in the auditorium, at 1500 N. Verdugo Road, begins at 4 p.m. Admission is $5, students and senior citizens are $3.