JoAnn Falletta: When you come to Kleinhans, you have the feeling you own a little bit of this hall.

This is your hall.

female announcer: Nestled in a neighborhood just outside downtown Buffalo is Kleinhans Music Hall, a revered National Historic Landmark and internationally recognized as one of the greatest music halls in America.

Lauren Becker: It's a very uplifting story; it's the music, but it's also the people who made that possible.

Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker: We brought the best of the world's talent and coupled it with the best of our talent to create this world-class music hall.

Ron Luczak: The sound is undescribable unless you're sitting in a seat, and you feel like they're playing just for you.

♪ Said it's been too hard to live there ♪♪ Drea D'Nur: To stand on that stage and offer my sound-- it is magical every time I sit on that stage.

Casimiro Rodriguez Sr.: I think that in the city of Buffalo there's not a place like Kleinhans Music Hall.

It's a very unique place.

Michael McEntarfer: I saw Arlo Guthrie, James Taylor.

I can recall seeing B.B.

King at Kleinhans Music Hall.

Clotilde: It's a place where the community gathers and where memories are made.

Nikki Chooi: Hi, JoAnn.

JoAnn: Hey, Nikki, are you going to play something for me?

Nikki: Yes, I will, I'll play a little bit of Strauss.

JoAnn: Excellent.

JoAnn: I don't often get to sit in the audience and just listen to the sound, and it always thrills me.

The hall is designed to project that sound all the way up to the balcony.

When you hear it up here, it's something truly beautiful.

♪♪♪ Paul Goldberger: Kleinhans has really become now sort of the civic auditorium of Buffalo not just in music, but in all of the life of the city of Buffalo, which is a wonderful, wonderful legacy for a building to have.

male announcer: Major funding for this program is provided by Clement and Karen Arrison, the Baird Foundation, Francis and Cindy Letro, and Bob Skerker; with additional funding from Bond, Schoeneck & King, Peter and Maria Eliopoulos, Daniel and Barbara Hart, and Jeremy and Sally Oczek, and by the members of WNED PBS.

Thank you.

Clotilde: Buffalo was a city on the move at the turn of the 20th century.

Great wealth was being built.

It was a city where growth was the order of the day.

announcer: In the early 1900s, Buffalo was the eighth largest city in the country and had the sixth largest water port in the world.

The city was building constantly, welcomed great architecture from Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright.

Anthony Greco: You've got the Pan-American Exposition happening in 1901, Bethlehem Steel moving into the area.

So you've got this economic boom.

We've had decades of population boom.

announcer: Among the newest to arrive in Buffalo were Edward Kleinhans and Mary Seaton Kleinhans, newlyweds from Kentucky hoping to capitalize on Buffalo's growth and expand the family clothing business.

Clotilde: They loved music.

In fact, Mary was quite an accomplished pianist, and Edward so admired her musical talents.

Lauren: Ed and Mary were known amongst their friends as a very romantic and devoted couple.

They were hardly ever apart.

Ed would come home from work and sit and listen to Mary sing and play the piano in their living room, his favorite thing to do.

Once the store became more successful they were able to travel all over the world, and they would seek out concert halls and music performances wherever they could find them.

Lauren: In many other places around the world, this fine music was enjoyed not only by the wealthy or the elite, or royalty in some countries, but by the quote-unquote "common people."

And when they were back in the States, they became aware that that wasn't necessarily the case.

Anthony: We would bring in symphonies or orchestras from Ohio, New York City, and they would play at places like the Elmwood Music Hall, but of course places like that weren't specifically built for music.

Lauren: It was an army drill shed.

And it was really good for that, but not so good for concerts.

Anthony: There's a saying in history, and it's "great societies plant trees under which they'll never sit," and it speaks to we need to make decisions based on future generations.

♪♪♪ announcer: As the Kleinhans clothing company enjoyed decades of success, Ed and Mary considered how they might use their wealth to leave a legacy for the future.

Lauren: They wanted to leave their fortune to the people of Buffalo.

For this music hall, the thing that they loved the most in the world, they wanted to give that back to the people of Buffalo.

announcer: In 1934, Ed and Mary die within months of each other.

They leave their estate to the newly-formed Buffalo Foundation.

Clotilde: And that's when the foundation went to work to make that vision reality.

announcer: The Kleinhans estate was valued at almost $1 million.

This was enough to begin planning the music hall, but would it be enough to finish it?

Clotilde: That entire process led the committee to the conclusion that the Kleinhans' legacy would be insufficient to the task of building this world-class music hall and that additional dollars would be needed.

announcer: More than $600,000 came from the Public Works Administration, increasing the total project to $1.5 million.

PWA funds were part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program, which supported infrastructure projects that make a city work and boost the economy by putting people to work.

Kleinhans Music Hall was just one of many local PWA projects.

Lauren: One of the biggest questions that people had and that people talked about was, where should we put this thing?

Where are we going to put this music hall?

announcer: Dozens of sites throughout the city were considered.

Clotilde: And three of those included where Delaware Rose Garden is now, a plot that was next to the science museum, and an estate that was on the west side of Buffalo.

Lauren: And Ed Letchworth from the Buffalo Foundation was one of the people in charge of making this decision, and he writes about how he could barely walk down the street without somebody coming up to him to give him his opinion of where this new music hall would be.

announcer: The Avery Estate had a large footprint at the edge of a neighborhood full of single family homes.

When its owner, Lavinia Mitchell, offered the property for a fraction of what it was worth, the Buffalo Foundation jumped at the chance.

Lauren: So we have the PWA money, we have the Kleinhans' money, and we have the site.

So now what do we want this hall to look like?

Paul: This was coming not that long after the Buffalo City Hall, which is maybe the greatest city hall in America and certainly one of the most ambitious, and it set a tone for this city and that was modern architecture.

Lauren: The Buffalo Foundation put together a really dynamic team.

We had Ed Letchworth and Sara Kerr from the foundation.

They also brought in Esther Link, who was both an architecture aficionado as well as a music teacher, and they also had Franklyn and William Kidd, who were two local architects who had actually already been hired for the job and had started to do some designs.

But the problem was the Kidd brothers were more traditional architects.

So when the committee started thinking, "Maybe we want something a little bit more modern," Franklyn Kidd said, "We should go find Eliel Saarinen."

announcer: Saarinen immigrated to the United States in the 1920s after placing second in an architecture competition for the new headquarters of the Chicago Tribune.

While he didn't win that competition, Saarinen became the chief designer and architect of a brand new academy of art and design called Cranbrook just outside Detroit and only a short train ride from Buffalo.

Paul: Eliel Saarinen was an extraordinary architect in Finland who had made a substantial reputation as one of the very best interpreters of the new age.

Eliel had a son named Eero, who chose to become an architect like his father, and for a relatively brief period the two worked side by side and produced a handful of extraordinary buildings.

announcer: Using some of the PWA funds, the Buffalo Foundation hired the Saarinens to submit a design for consideration.

Paul: There had been no major concert hall built in the modern architectural language in the United States.

announcer: Earlier theaters and concert halls were grand, ornamental, busy with decoration and fabric.

The Saarinens' design was anything but that.

It was sleek and modern, with clean lines and curving walls flowing from one space to another.

The design was in the international style, which began to emerge in Europe after World War I and spread throughout the world in the 1930s.

The proposed design featured a main hall for larger performances, a smaller hall for chamber music and community events, and a lobby that connected the two.

Outside, a reflecting pool bordered the front of the building.

It came down to two choices for the music hall committee and the city leaders: the traditional Kidd brothers' design or the modern visionary design from the Saarinen father-and-son team.

In a 4 to 3 vote the Saarinen design prevailed, and the Kidds stayed on as the local architects.

Brian Carter: This building is a very early example of an exploration about the international style, but in a sense I will tell you this building also belongs to Buffalo.

♪♪♪ announcer: Over the years, establishing a thriving local philharmonic had been difficult, especially without a permanent home.

On October 12th, 1940, 6 years after the city learned of the Kleinhans' generous gift, Buffalonians celebrated in their brand new temple of music with an inaugural concert conducted by music director Franco Autori.

Brian: So as we're in this green space, we're part of the Olmsted Plan.

So this building is very much a backdrop.

It's not an assertive building that stands out elevated or with lots of towers and crenellations.

In Saarinen's design, he decided to put the small auditorium to the street, not the big building.

So the building is very modest on the street.

It plays a secondary role for this marvelous landscape we're in, right?

JoAnn: This is sort of a complex of halls.

We--of course this is the main auditorium and this is where most of the music happens, but the--right across from us is a beautiful chamber music hall, the Mary Seaton Room.

It's perfect for a quartet, a quintet, a small group playing on that stage.

♪♪♪ announcer: The lobby between the two halls creates a different kind of intimacy, encouraging the social benefit of experiencing music together.

Brian: It's almost like an ocean liner when you're in it.

And so the character of that space is very different than the character of the two other spaces.

Paul: This is a building meant to evoke an emotional response to never make you feel that the architects are not thinking of your visual and emotional comfort all the time.

JoAnn: The hall is very intimate, and that intimacy makes everyone who comes in here feel a part of our family.

You don't feel that in many halls.

In many halls you're made to sort of be a visitor and that's as far as you get.

You visit it and you leave.

When you come to Kleinhans, you have the feeling you own a little bit of this hall.

This is your hall and you feel comfortable wandering around.

announcer: Serving its main purpose as a music hall, Kleinhans has been home to the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from the very beginning.

Under the leadership of world-class music directors like Lukas Foss and Michael Tilson Thomas, the hall gave the orchestra a place to grow and to develop their sound.

JoAnn: You have the ceiling and the floor and the walls around you just as a violin has those basic things to hold its shape, but inside is a resonating box, and that's what we are.

It's a resonating box.

Fabio Bidini: This is one of the most fantastic halls I ever played in my life, and every time I come I enjoy tremendously much.

The acoustic is phenomenal.

And if you--I mean, this is a huge hall and it feels like you're actually playing in your living room.

♪♪♪ Ron: The sound is undescribable unless you're sitting in a seat, and you feel like they're playing just for you because that's the way the sound wraps around you.

Allan Ripley: The hall just impresses you.

You know, when I was younger, I always thought it would be great to--I always had these big speakers and systems and my stereo system and like, "I want to get that sound," you know.

But when you come here live, there's nothing like it.

It's just the best.

♪♪♪ [applause] Denise Prince: We Buffalonians always say how excellent the acoustics are here, so I wanted to learn about why--what is it, what makes the acoustics so good.

announcer: Denise Prince spent a year researching the acoustics of the hall for her master's thesis on Kleinhans.

Denise: The planners of the hall, including Charles Potwin, the lead acoustical engineer, planned for a two-second reverberation time.

Nikki: For us string players, a hall that causes problems would be a hall that's on the drier side.

You know, when you play a note, it stops right there, as opposed to this hall, which... do you hear the ring?

That's exactly what we are looking for as string players.

Denise: All the surfaces in the hall had to be considered for their effect on the sound, including convex surfaces such as this back wall here, and the ripples in the ceiling are also convex.

The convex shapes and also the fins in the wall help to push sound out and distribute it evenly.

announcer: To absorb sound, mineral wool is randomly placed behind perforated panels; and surfaces like the carpet, padded seats, wooden armrests, and human bodies all factor into the equation.

Nikki: Obviously it has to sound great out there, but also as a player it has to also feel comfortable.

It's almost like playing an instrument, you know, the hall itself.

It's--you play with the hall.

♪♪♪ Joy Scime: These are just little snatches of things that I remember.

The very first time I was in Kleinhans was as a 9-year-old piano student, and we had a piano recital in-- ready for this?

The Mary Seaton Room.

Joy: Well, the next time I went to Kleinhans I wasn't quite a teenager, and I went there because my father was the music director of the "Hearts-a-Poppin'" show, and it was 1957.

Well, this is my dad on stage for this show, and here he is in rehearsal.

They did it as though it were a USO show, a variety show.

They were guys and gals from the Bell Aircraft plant.

They were people in the office.

Some of them had talents.

Some of them had to be encouraged in the development of their talent.

Kleinhans is not just a venue for the famous.

It's for all the people of Western New York as performers as well as audience members.

It's just that kind of place.

male: Alexandra Judith Bennis.

Clotilde: Kleinhans Music Hall is a place where the whole idea of community happens.

Lauren: There's so much history here in the hall.

Everywhere you go, you see it and you feel it.

Not long after the hall opened, the United States entered World War II.

So right off the bat, we have USO shows and dances to entertain the troops and to try to keep Buffalonians engaged and optimistic.

And then we move into the civil rights era and Robert Kennedy opens his Senate campaign here and Martin Luther King Jr. is speaking here.

Ruth Bryant: In 1967 I had graduated from UB and I was working, and as a person of color I thought, "I need to be there."

His presence was--like, filled the room and you go, like, "Oh my God, this is Dr.

King."

And you just sat in awe.

You know, where I was sitting, left of stage, no one moved.

It was quiet.

You wanted to hear everything he was saying, and no interference.

I don't think anybody even coughed.

Martin Luther King Jr.: Members of the student body of the State University of New York at Buffalo, ladies and gentlemen-- Ruth: You could feel the presence, you know, and it's like, "I was there, I was there."

I think after that I became much more aware of my community and how I could be a part of it and to make changes.

♪♪♪ Michael: I can recall seeing Peter, Paul and Mary.

I saw Arlo Guthrie, James Taylor.

I can recall seeing B.B.

King at Kleinhans Music Hall.

I drive by the building and I think of the events that I went to and I go right back to being just a kid again.

It was 1965 November and my friends and I were in a band, and we discovered that Bob Dylan was coming to Buffalo at Kleinhans Music Hall and we just knew we had to go.

He played two sets that night.

His first set was an acoustic set, and it was just him and his acoustic guitar.

The audience was in rapt attention you could hear a pin drop.

No one said a word.

This was a folk music crowd.

They were folkies who wanted to hear Bob Dylan play his acoustic guitar and sing his protest songs.

When he came back from his break, all hell broke loose.

The audience went nuts.

He was playing rock and roll music.

He was very loud.

So the audience began to boo, about half of them.

They began to stomp their feet.

They were shouting things at him.

They were calling him a traitor.

I feel like it was history in the making watching this process of Bob Dylan invent folk rock right in Buffalo, and we got to see it.

male: Yeah, just a couple bars.

We'll be all set.

announcer: Kleinhans Music Hall continues to serve the city of Buffalo.

It's a familiar place for local performers like Drea D'Nur, but the night she sang for world-class author Toni Morrison was an unforgettable experience.

Drea: Like I understood that that was going to be probably one of her last public performances.

♪ Said it's been too hard ♪♪ Drea: To stand on that stage and offer my sound as a vessel of the echoes in that space was magical.

announcer: Morrison came to Buffalo on November 9th, 2017, the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's visit to Kleinhans, at the invitation of the Just Buffalo Writing Center as part of the Babel literary series.

Toni Morrison: But it's really a delight to finally be here in this city which is really quite extraordinary, I'd forgotten.

Barbara Cole: Part of the reason that Kleinhans feels like the perfect home for the Babel series is that literature touches us in the same way that music touches us.

announcer: Kleinhans has been home to the series since 2007 and welcomes students and adults an opportunity to hear world-class authors.

Drea D'Nur's daughter, Sehrea, was in the audience that night, not just to hear her mother perform, but as a student from the writing center.

Sehrea N'Dayu: Her presence filled that entire room.

I think I might even had a notebook and pen right in my hand, and I was--I had never been so excited to go write.

It's very important to know that people like Dr. King and Toni Morrison and even, like, my mother and other amazing people, that they have also been on that stage.

It's just a really profound message that we can hold space anywhere in this world.

♪♪♪ JoAnn: This is a hall in a neighborhood, and it fits into that neighborhood.

And I love that feeling that it's not a hall that you are a little afraid of, but it's a hall where you belong.

It's a community hall.

[singing in foreign language] Casimiro: We celebrate a main event here every year in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, and we--and Kleinhans Music Hall, the BPO, they bring nationally-known Hispanic artists to perform here.

José Feliciano came to perform.

Rita Moreno.

My son was part of the band that performed here with a very well-known New York City band, Salsa Meets Symphony.

[singing in Spanish] Casimiro: And that's why for the last decade or more we've built a very strong relationship with Kleinhans Music Hall, the Buffalo Philharmonic.

So we're very fortunate, and it's a connection.

Paul: Kleinhans has really become now sort of the civic auditorium of Buffalo because it--first it integrates the original function of music with all sorts of other things in life like graduations and things like that, but also it elevates all of those other events because they're taking place in this beautiful and majestic space.

Anthony: Philanthropy has always been a major player in Buffalo's arts and culturals in the institutions that we have because of people like the Kleinhans family.

Casimiro: They had to be visionary to really be able to see in the future what this place could do for the community that it serves.

Lauren: Now that I understand the people who made this hall possible, all these people who devoted so much time to making the best hall they could for everyone's benefit, the fact that the hall is still here, that's a testament to everybody who's taken care of it ever since then.

So that's what Kleinhans has meant to me.

It's the music, but it's also the people who made that possible.

And it's just them--it's a very uplifting story.

announcer: Major funding for this program is provided by Clement and Karen Arrison, the Baird Foundation, Francis and Cindy Letro, and Bob Skerker; with additional funding from Bond, Schoeneck & King, Peter and Maria Eliopoulos, Daniel and Barbara Hart, and Jeremy and Sally Oczek, and by the members of WNED PBS.

Thank you.

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