Massey Hall
Toronto's 1894 concert hall, reopened in 2021 after a long revitalisation and now part of the Allied Music Centre.
Massey Hall was built as Massey Music Hall with money from the farm-machinery manufacturer Hart Massey, who commissioned the church architect Sidney Rose Badgley. The three-storey red brick building opened on 14 June 1894 with a performance of Handel's Messiah, and its Moorish-influenced auditorium seats roughly 2,500 people on a floor and two steep balconies. For decades it served as Toronto's principal concert room and was the original home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
The hall has hosted Enrico Caruso, Glenn Gould, Duke Ellington, Maria Callas, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, whose 1971 concerts were later issued as a live recording. A multi-phase revitalisation led by KPMB Architects, with GBCA Architects advising on conservation, closed the building in 2018; it reopened in November 2021 with restored stained glass, new seating and lift access. A seven-storey addition alongside, the Allied Music Centre, adds the smaller TD Music Hall, rehearsal rooms and recording studios.
Highlights
- Moorish-style auditorium of 1894 with two steep balconies
- Restored stained-glass windows revealed during the revitalisation
- Site of Neil Young's 1971 live recording and countless Canadian debuts
- Linked to the newer TD Music Hall in the Allied Music Centre
