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CHS Pics | As plans form for its replacement, Volunteer Park stage hosts ‘music under the stars’

IMG_5207There will be more music in the park Thursday night after Volunteer Park gets its summer piano. Wednesday night, the Seattle Chamber Music Society hosted another “Music Under the Stars” session at the Volunteer Park amphitheater stage.

With life in a northern town meaning no stars until the sun’s light finally fades late into the night and with an amphitheater lawn already much more brown than we’re used to seeing in Seattle, the Sempre Sisters performed Handel — “plus fiddle favorites” — as a prelude to the picnic-friendly KING FM broadcast from Benaroya Hall. The 2015 series in Volunteer Park wraps up next week with July 22nd’s night of music.

IMG_5219Meanwhile, the effort to recreate Volunteer Park’s amphitheater is moving forward with a $25,000 grant from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods to create a feasibility study to “explore technical requirements and community preferences for a new performance space.”

CHS wrote earlier this year about the Volunteer Park Trust’s effort to recreate the outdoor performance space. According to the city, a performance pavilion was designed into the park by the Olmsted Brothers back in 1912 — but that pavilion stood where the Seattle Asian Art Museum stands today. The current stage dates to the 1970s and is showing its age.Screen Shot 2015-07-16 at 3.47.22 PM

“Public input will be a major component of the year-long study, with two community-wide meetings planned as well as targeted focus groups for neighbors, arts organizations, and major park users,” an announcement from the trust on the project reads. “Once the agreed-upon design is completed, the Trust will work with Seattle Parks in seeking a combination of public and private funds to finance construction, with the goal of having a new performance space completed by 2018.”

You can learn more at volunteerparktrust.org.

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jz
jz
8 years ago

The stage is fine. I’d rather see money and effort put toward capping the reservoir and turning that area into usable park space rather than a high-security no-man’s land.

rebeccabush
rebeccabush
8 years ago

I’d love to see an updated stage and more music in the park! Especially welcome would be some modern, well maintained and non treacherous public toilets for the park. I had to help rescue a European tourist who got trapped in the men’s bathroom on the back side of the stage earlier this summer- I’m sure that it will be the highlight of his trip to Seattle.