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 Many of you will be aware, some time back now, of the proposal for a new concert hall in the centre of Wimbledon to replace the Civic Hall demolished in the early 1990s. The initial proposal got some traction but lost impetus when trying to encourage Merton Council to support it and subsequently went quiet.
A revised attempt at a proposal for a new concert hall started a few years ago and is being driven this time by Anthony Wilkinson, Director of the Wimbledon International Music Festival. This, too, is making good progress and has some high ambitions in who would be involved and what the final hall may look like.
Further details can be found at www.wimbledonconcerthall.co.uk. On this website you can register your support for this project and, if you wish, also make a donation to the campaign costs.
Wimbledon Choral Society is firmly behind this proposal as it would, after nearly 30 years, enable us to have a suitable and large enough local base in which to perform our concerts as well as continuing to use the other venues where we perform today. We would encourage every member of the choir, and indeed every visitor to this website, to register their support for the project to build a 1250-seat auditorium that could attract musicians from across London, the UK and from around the world. Indeed it is already attracting considerable attention from a large number of big names in the music world and could become a major performance venue. London has a rather odd collection of concert halls but needs something of this hall's size and flexibility to fill a large gap in the city's offerings. Far from being a white elephant, this endeavour has the potential to be a great asset.
The image above is the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. It was designed by the renowed architect Frank Gehry (Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao) who has already drafted a concept for the Wimbledon Concert Hall. Wouldn't it be fantastic to perform in a space like this?
See this article in The Observer newspaper on Sunday 10th Feb 2019.
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