Kansas City Symphony to Build Additional Music Hall

In Monday’s (3/30) Kansas City Star, Eleanor Nash writes, “The Kansas City Symphony plans to break ground on a new Plaza-area concert venue in 2026. The music hall, located on the vacant land to the south of the Kansas City Public Library’s Plaza branch, will seat 4,600 for touring concerts and film with live orchestra performances … The venue at 4901 Main St. will be designed for ‘contemporary touring artists’ who use microphones, unlike the acoustically focused Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center, which seats 1,600. Symphony CEO Danny Beckley told The Star that the Kauffman Center ‘will always be our home, even after this venue opens.’ He plans for the Symphony to host over 100 shows a year at [Helzberg Hall], built in 2011. Beckley said the still-unnamed concert hall will bring different artists … in addition to funding the Symphony’s classical music. ‘A number of (our peer symphony orchestras) have found that this is a really important way to sustain themselves, by presenting music, not only performing it,’ Beckley said…. While the Symphony will build and own the venue, Cincinnati-based Music and Event Management, Inc. will operate it. A subsidiary of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, MEMI books acts at seven Ohio venues, along with shows in Michigan and South Carolina.”