Genève Victoria Hall 2011-08-08 17 48 29 PICT3685

The Victoria Hall is a

concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that ma ...

Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

History

The Victoria Hall was built in 1891–1894 by the architect John Camoletti and financed by the British consul, Daniel Fitzgerald Packenham Barton, who dedicated it to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

and gifted it to the City of Geneva in 1904. On 16 September 1984, the building was partly destroyed by a fire. The decorative paintings by Ernest Biélier were destroyed. It was rebuilt, and the paintings were replaced by a contemporary work by

Dominique Appia Dominique Appia (29 July 1926 – 8 January 2017) was a Swiss painter based in Geneva. His paintings depict imaginative scenarios of cities, landscapes and interiors where familiar elements are juxtaposed as in a dream: a cathedral becomes a rail ...

Description

The main entrance is facing east. The auditorium has three layers: The

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

and two layers of balconies. A monumental pipe organ occupies the back of the stage. The original pipe organ was destroyed during the 1984-fire and rebuilt in 1993. The hall is mainly used for

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

concerts, but it also hosts performers in

song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and world music.Official web site
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References

External links

Victoria Hall Concert History
Concert halls in Switzerland Cultural venues in Geneva Entertainment venues in Geneva Neoclassical architecture in Switzerland Music venues completed in 1894 1894 establishments in Switzerland {{music-venue-stub