Koerner Hall — Attraction in Toronto

Keener Hall is a beautiful building. They took a 120? Year old building and made it into an ultramodern theatre and event venue. That being said, there’s a lot of stairs. I was at my son’s graduation ceremony and of course do many grandparents came to see the graduates. From the second floor balcony seats (which was two long staircases up from the entrance level) I watched/walked behind a couple (grandma was just old and cautious) and grandpa with full on hearing aids, coke bottle glasses and TWO canes, hunched over but in a great looking suit, and he’s got his pride, when the security guard asks if he wants to use the elevator on the other side of the hall, he waves her off and starts caning down this long staircases. His wife is behind him, like she’s going to be able to catch him if he takes a fall- NO! She’s just doubling down on their chances of unaliving both of them! Of course, four steps down, he drops one of his canes and security runs down to get it, and this old stubborn goat just continues down waving off the guard’s proffered hand. Long story short- He made it! And that’s when I zoomed down the remaining stairs with my son in tow, and slipped around the couple cuz there was no effing way I was going to be stuck behind them on the next staircase down… Acoustics were really good in the theatre, and of course parking sucks around there. Found a nearby lot which advertised $16 /day from 8am-10pm. But when I parked and go to the machine, it’s really $19! (But that’s a separate review which I will prolly never write). “If music be the food of love, play on”...

I have to deliver a rampage here: Koerner Hall is just great, it sounds wonderful, the architecture is striking, the atmosphere is great in general. I love the intros given by the director, i love the program, it is so versatile. Everything is in the right place. And then the audience arrives: they come late, let musicians wait on stage, you have Gautier Capucon play Shostakovich Sonata, and in the most moving part of the 3rd movement a phone goes off. Not just once, for 20 sec. And later another one, and another one. It is unbelievable how disrespectful people are. A piece like this Sonata has 4 movements. It goes from beginning to end, it has a flow. So don't you dare and interrupt with your stupid clapping all the time. It interrupts the artist, it interrupts everything. If you appreciate the performance then do so when it is over. Basic manners! Getting up in the middle of playing and leave the hall with rattling heels is simply rude. One notices, most people can not sit still anymore, even during the performance screens go on, messaging takes place. I have never ever seen anything like this. And to be honest I was in shock. Klaus Brendel, the world famous pianist once delivered personally Ricola Bonbons before his concert to stop the coughing. He had enough. Koerner Hall, do something, this is seriously compromising the high level of music that you present and deliver. It is so great to be back,...

I can only echo the positive reviews here. The Royal Conservatory of Music has come such a long way since I was a student in the '60s and '70s, when it was a forbidding, depressingly painted (think of the paint job in the elementary school of your nightmares, beige and green and yellow, the color of old invoices) and, in the winter, freezing cold example of Titus Groan architecture, albeit with some stellar teachers; some of whom I was privileged to study with.

Now it's amazingly hip and of-the-moment, all spruced up, with not just one but two concert halls and even a coffee bar. Our dowager RCM now wears the jewel of Koerner Hall lightly on her grizzled but immaculately manicured finger. The hall is exquisitely designed, with perfect acoustics in the hall itself and in the lobby a curtain-wall of glass providing a gorgeous wrap-around view over Philosophers Walk.

I experienced one of the most memorable performances of Beethoven's 9th Symphony I've ever heard in Koerner Hall, as in heard every note from first to last, from PPP to FFF, and that is all the recommendation you need.

Long live Koerner Hall, and congrats to the RCM, revitalized and reborn. You're not just lovely, my dear,...