Salt Lake City's Symphony Hall, home of the Utah Symphony, will be renamed for Maurice Abrava-nel, who in his 32 seasons as its conductor led the orchestra to international prominence.
Symphony board members were told of the name change Monday at a quickly called meeting at the hall. Formal announcement will be made Tuesday at a 90th-birthday dinner for the maestro.Calling Abravanel "a national treasure," Salt Lake County Commission Chairman Jim Bradley said the decision to rename the facility was supported by all three members of the commission, which oversees the hall's operation.
The building was opened in 1979 as part of the county's Bicentennial Center for Arts. A suggestion to name the hall for Abravanel, who retired earlier that year, was made at that time but was eventually rejected.
"What we're doing," said Bradley, "is uniting two towers of achievement - this beautiful building, itself an architectural landmark, and the conductor who is responsible for its veryexistence.
"Forty-five years ago he took over a semi-professional ensemble and transformed it into a nationally respected symphony orchestra, which created world-class recordings of masterworks and premiered new ones," Bradley said. He acknowledged that Abravanel himself never conducted in the hall, but Bradley said he hoped the renamed Maurice Abravanel Hall would "endure over the generations to come, symbolizing Utah's continued commitment to the arts and to excellence."
Reached at home, Abravanel said he was "overwhelmed and delighted" by the commission's decision, "especially after they told me it was the consensus all over Utah. They said they had checked and everybody's reaction was it was long overdue."
It thus becomes the fourth hall to be named in Abravanel's honor, the others being at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif., which he directed for 27 years, and at retirement communities in Oceanside, Calif., and Long Island, N.Y.
Other honors bestowed on the conductor in the years since his retirement include the Gold Baton of the American Symphony Orchestra League and the Conductors Guild's Theodore Thomas Award. In 1991, the National Medal of Arts, presented to him at the White House by President Bush.