Where Yo-Yo Ma Sleeps
Not to be confused with where Yo-Ma-Ma sleeps, which is the start of a crude joke. Stanford's Bing Concert Hall and Degenkolb Engineers of San Francisco recently received the state's highest award for engineering excellence from the American Council of Engineering Companies-California. To celebrate, the group coordinated a tour this week of the $119M, 842-seat symphony hall. The curvilinear design of the seat backs and details are modeled after the shape of a music note. Stanford Live director of productions and operations Matt Rodriguez showed us a backstage practice room that Yo-Yo Ma caught a nap in before a performance. Emmylou Harris and Shawn Colvin will perform later this year, so maybe they'll have a cat nap there, too.
The ladies bathrooms feature original artwork in each stall and a lighting alert system—similar to one you'd find on a plane—with overhead green lights that turn red when cubicle doors are closed. The hall was originally conceived to offer more than 1,000 seats but the seating was cut back in the design phase because benefactors Dr. Peter Bing (Stanford '55) and his wife, Helen, wanted an intimate and comfortable experience. The hall's seats are up to six inches wider than the average seat for a Broadway show and some feature up to a foot of extra leg room. No seat in the house is more than 75 feet from the performance. (Perfect, unless Gallagher is playing the Hall.)
