"The changes to the external funding environment for higher education mean that any investment we wish to make – whether to maintain the existing estate, to provide world class research facilities with cutting edge equipment, an excellent student learning environment supported by the latest technology, high-quality halls of residence, or scholarships and bursaries – we have to fund ourselves.
"What I do want to put across is that people want to see an increase in the quality of halls.
But what matters most to someone like me who spends a lot of time at Lincoln Center hearing concerts and going to operas, is the quality of the halls and houses.
The next topic is the quantifiable acoustical attributes that can be related to hall quality and thence to a rank ordering of world concert halls.
But each has a precise mathematical meaning that seeks to isolate a specific aspect of acoustical quality in a hall.
Some of the songs have a music-hall quality, some have a carnival atmosphere, and some, such as "City," are joyful and astute and thrilling.
The technical components of hall quality are then discussed, including reverberation time, early reflections and clarity, envelopment, loudness, bass, diffusion, and platform acoustics.
Nevertheless, the physical properties of membranes allow for building of large-span tents, suitable for variety of cultural events and concerts, where the acoustic quality inside the hall and sound insulation properties of its exterior structure are one of the main building physics requirements.
Sitting at the Steinway concert grand that takes up most of the floor space--the set otherwise consists of four oversized, gilded "mirrors," which serve as projection screens--Golabek offers recital-hall quality excerpts, one after the other.
In the separate fish hall, the quality and quantity of fresh, gleaming seafood, from sardines to octopus and everything in between, are unsurpassed.
We wanted to take 'Winterreise' away from the Rolls-Royce quality of the recital hall and put it into the rougher theater environment".
