Montreal’s New Hall – So Far, It’s All In The Mind

The details surrounding the Montreal Symphony’s new concert hall have been officially announced. “But long-suffering local music lovers should not hold their breath. While the proposed facility on the neglected northeast corner of Place des Arts has an estimated price tag – $105 million – it does not yet have a builder or architect and is not expected to materialize before 2011, the last year of Kent Nagano’s contracted tenure as MSO music director. What was unveiled yesterday was less a concert hall than a hypothetical five-year plan to build one as the first cultural private-public partnership in Quebec.”