Helzberg Hall

The Kauffman Center’s 1,600-seat Helzberg Hall will host a variety of local, regional, national and international artists and performance groups, including serving as the performance home of the Kansas City Symphony.

The 1,600-seat venue is oval in shape and the stage extends approximately one-third of the distance into the Hall, thus placing 40 percent of the seats alongside or behind the orchestra. This creates an intimate and immersive experience for both artists and audiences and allows a portion of the audience to experience the musician’s perspective during performance. The distance from the stage to Helzberg Hall’s farthest seat is just over 100 feet.

The Hall features mechanical risers that allow the layout of the stage to be altered quickly and easily, greatly expanded backstage facilities, and acoustics which can be readily customized for solo concerts, chamber music, and full orchestra. Helzberg Hall will also enable the Kansas City Symphony to rehearse and perform in the same space, something it has been unable to do at its current home, the Lyric Theatre.

The visual centerpiece of Helzberg Hall will be a Casavant Frères pipe organ, which will be one of the finest concert hall organs in the country. Quebec-based firm Casavant Frères has custom-designed the mechanical organ in the French romantic tradition, with 79 stops, 102 ranks, and 5,548 pipes.