Hall monitor

IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME The welcoming interior of Merit's Gottlieb Hall waits patiently for the performers—and audience—to arrive.

Too big, bad acoustics, too far away—these are the insults thrown at Chicago's chamber-music venues over the years. Point out the virtues of Orchestra Hall as a chamber-music space—its clear sound, pleasant ambience—and you're told that, at 2,400 seats, it's too big. Mention that Mandel Hall, at the University of Chicago, is smaller and the sound can be heard clearly even from the back, and North Siders moan that it's too far from downtown. But some new halls, including one that's less than ten years old, provide the scene with much-needed spaces that aren't too big, aren't too small, and have both pleasant acoustics and the intimacy that makes for real chamber music.

The most recent addition, which opened in June 2005 with 372 seats, is the Merit School of Music's Anne and Howard Gottlieb Hall (38 S Peoria St between Madison and Monroe Sts), in Merit's new Joy Faith Knapp Music Center. Merit uses it primarily to showcase its students' performances, but local ensembles can rent it. Gottlieb has already made an impact among local musicians, with CUBE and the Callisto Ensemble offering concerts—in Callisto's case, all its concerts—there. The sound in Gottlieb, even when Merit's youngest string students play, isn't murky, and you feel close to the musicians without being so close that their sound becomes overwhelming.

The other newcomer is Lyon & Healy Hall (168 N Ogden Ave at Randolph St), which opened last spring at the harp manufacturer's factory. Additionally, Lyon & Healy presents a concert series of local and touring musicians. (The next concert is February 25, a pairing of harpist María Luisa Rayan and flutist Thomas Robertello.)

Lyon & Healy Hall puts the chamber back in chamber music, as it's more a large room than a hall. The stage is low to the ground, not raised the usual three to four feet, so audiences are only a bit below the performers. The hall uses chairs, too, that aren't in immobile, concert hall–style rows. The wide room can nominally seat 200, but for the Rembrandt Chamber Players' concert on December 6, seating was scaled back to a comfortable 150. The space isn't big enough for the sound to lack definition, but there isn't much of the glow that really fine halls have, either. For sheer intimacy, though, it's a fine place to see a show, and offers a marvelous view of downtown through the window behind the stage.

The Sherwood Conservatory of Music's Recital Hall (1312 S Michigan Ave between 13th and 14th Sts), with 125 seats, accommodates fewer people than Lyon & Healy Hall does but has more of a concert hall–like feel, with raked seating, concert hall–style rows and a balcony. It's been open for six years and exists, according to executive director Darcy Walker, to get people to hear live music. "There's nothing down here [in the South Loop], and we want to have a space that people can bring their kids to," she says. The acoustics are in the same ballpark as Merit's, managing to be vibrant but not overpowering.

In Evanston, word-of-mouth has quickly spread the good news of the Music Institute of Chicago's 500-seat Nichols Concert Hall (1490 Chicago Ave at Grove St) since it opened in 2003. New MIC president Sel Karden's background is in presenting chamber music in Baltimore, and he has big plans for Nichols. "I don't want to repeat programming that's going on elsewhere," he says, singling out cellist Matt Haimovitz, who recently played at FitzGerald's, as the sort of performer he'd like to welcome. With two fine pianos, one of which is a Hamburg-built Steinway, the hall is proving popular with performers, and Karden is optimistic that "die-hard fans," and probably other Chicagoans, "would be willing to make the trip" to Evanston.

For Chicago to be a destination for top-tier chamber music, these venues, often hindered by a lack-of-money issue, would have to present top-tier touring ensembles. But there's no reason to say that these spaces aren't right for chamber music, as area musicians already know.