Meet the SLSO’s New Education and Learning Center
By Eric Dundon
When the Jack C. Taylor Music Center—with a renovated Powell Hall at its heart—opens in September 2025, improvements at the venue will enable the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) to make music more accessible to the community it serves. The changes will enhance the concertgoing experience for audiences through better ADA compliance, acoustic improvements, and a plethora of new amenities.
One facet of the 64,000-square-foot expansion will also open new doors that foster community connections through the power of music. Meet the SLSO’s new Education and Learning Center (ELC).
This nearly 4,000-square-foot space will serve as a home for the SLSO’s education programs, a rehearsal space for the SLSO’s two resident choruses and the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra, and a hub for events that brings the community together and explores creative collaborations.
“A multi-functional Education and Learning Center that serves various artistic, educational, and audience needs was always a key priority of this expansion project,” said Marie-Hélène Bernard, SLSO President and CEO. “The 3,600-square-foot state of the art space will support music education programs and the teachers and students with whom we connect. It will also act as rehearsal and creative laboratory for all SLSO ensembles, in addition to being an essential anchor for community engagement with our institution.”
Envisioned to serve SLSO constituents in many ways, the ELC will support hundreds of musicians as well as a range of SLSO community and education programs. Community organizations will also have the opportunity to rent the location for special events.
Thoughtfully designed by the project’s lead architecture firm Snøhetta to support a variety of functions, the ELC will have full audio and lighting systems with its own control room. Kirkegaard, the project’s acoustics firm, worked closely with the design and construction teams to create an acoustically superb space to support rehearsals and future performances. Crafted to mimic the environment of Powell Hall, the floor will be the same white oak as the Emerson concert stage. A scrim will conceal infrastructure and create a sleek, attractive setting.
How the ELC will become animated once open in September 2025 is coming into focus. Supporting the SLSO’s robust portfolio of education programs will be a primary purpose of the ELC. The center will host workshops for educators, its Tiny Tunes program that introduces orchestral music to Pre-K students, supplementary concert activities, and other programs. Altogether, the SLSO’s education programs reached 430,000 students and teachers in the 23/24 season, with the number of students engaged growing sevenfold since 2020.
“I’m so excited for my students to experience the joy of music and learning in this beautiful new space,” said Sheila Baer, a music educator from Union, Missouri, who has collaborated with the SLSO on several programs. “The SLSO and its education team have been working tirelessly to inspire the next generation of musicians and educators. This space will provide a more conducive environment for all ages and abilities to experience just this.”
A dramatic, street-level window at the southeast corner of the ELC will allow passersby to see activity inside the building, a key architectural detail designed to create a sense of openness with the community. For members of two resident SLSO choruses, this element will elevate the ensembles’ visibility. The ELC will provide more adequate rehearsal and gathering space for the choruses, which previously had to jockey for time on Powell Hall’s stage and regularly rehearsed in alternate venues.
“The St. Louis Symphony Chorus (SLSC) features a wealth of singers, and a dedicated space will provide a consistent, convenient center-point of rehearsal for all our singers, especially the talent we have commuting from all over the bi-state region,” said Phil Touchette, a long-time member of the SLSC. “I have no doubt that the renovated and new facilities will befit the talent we bring to this world-class organization.”
The SLSC collaborates with the SLSO several times each season on a range of choral-orchestral repertoire ranging from G.F. Handel and Ludwig van Beethoven to John Adams and György Ligeti. The SLSC has traveled with the orchestra to Carnegie Hall and received critical acclaim for the polish and power of its performances.
The St. Louis Symphony IN UNISON Chorus, formed in 1994 primarily of singers from local Black churches, has the unique mission of performing and preserving music from the African diaspora. The ELC will serve as a nexus for concert preparation of this important body of work. For Valencia Branch, an IN UNISON Chorus member since 2019, the new facilities will also foster camaraderie between members of the community that share a deep passion for the music of Black traditions.
“The SLSO already does a great job engaging the community with the wide variety of performances offered each season,” Branch said. “With the renovation and addition of the Education and Learning Center, I’m sure even more people will come together to experience the magic of live music.”
The SLSO engages one million people annually in St. Louis and around the world. That engagement, and the life enrichment through music it brings, will find a new point of convergence in the ELC when it opens in September 2025.
Eric Dundon is the SLSO’s Public Relations Director
